I liked Chloe. She’s an earnest young woman who is doing right by her younger siblings after their mother abandoned them.
Jasper was my next favorite character. Every cranky curmudgeon has a backstory and his was especially interesting.
I had no use for Chloe’s mother and I also didn’t care for Catherine. I thought she was selfish and very unfair to Jasper.
I liked the book references through tin and that Chloe worked in a library.
The book shows that kindred spirits can be found in the most unlikeliest of places.

In Lucy Gilmore’s heartwarming novel, The Library of Borrowed Hearts, Chloe's life is a balancing act between caring for her younger siblings and trying to make ends meet as a library assistant. When she discovers a rare book with a hidden love story in the margins, she hopes to sell it to secure a better future. However, her world is turned upside down when her brother gets into trouble and breaks his leg.

As Chloe navigates her responsibilities and desperate circumstances, her curmudgeonly old neighbor’s offer a small fortune for the book and the park ranger who rescued her brother both offer a glimmer of hope. But it's the mysterious notes in the margins that truly capture her attention. As she deciphers the clues, she becomes obsessed with uncovering the story of the past lovers.

This captivating novel masterfully weaves together a dual timeline, slowly revealing the secrets, struggles, and charms of the characters. The author's skillful storytelling will have you rooting for the entire cast. With its unique blend of mystery, romance, and heart, The Library of Borrowed Hearts is a must-read for anyone looking for a story that will leave them feeling uplifted and inspired. This was a five-star read for me!

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for providing an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely loved it. I thought the story was beautiful and so wonderfully written. I was totally invested in the characters and just didn't want to put the book down.

I made it three chapters before I had to quit. I wanted to enjoy reading it because it takes place in a library and the premise sounded good, but the main character drove me nuts.

I really loved this book at first. It was giving me kind of The Notebook vibes but with star-crossed lovers using book annotations to communicate (which I loved, btw, what a nice idea, and it was executed well). Chloe, the person who finds the annotated book and starts looking into it felt like a real person. I loved her family, those kids were so much fun to read about, and I connected with her struggles. Then, when we started learning more about the star-crossed lovers from the past, I really liked their characters as well.

However, I don't love where things went. I understood the reason why the two lovers couldn't be together, but:

1) Catherine faking her death was so melodramatic and felt so unrealistic that it took me right out of the story. I also didn't love the final conversation between Catherine and Jasper, and how they worked things out. It felt so anticlimactic and I was like "Oh... is that it???" cause it was barely a conversation. Again, I understood the reasons, but the execution of these things wasn't great IMO. I also felt like "Oh, okay..." when the reveal about Zach happened. It was just not executed well. I would've loved for hints to be dropped from the moment Jasper and he met; that would've made the reveal feel more in place. It felt like it was just dropped in there.

2) Chloe and Zach's romance was severely undercooked and it felt unfinished, like an afterthought the author had and she just didn't have or didn't take enough time to marinate the idea in her mind and make it fit better into the overall story.

3) The way things were resolved with Chloe's mom, I hated that. No confrontation from Chloe, no nothing. It was all internal and at least there's that, but I hated everything about the mom coming back like nothing happened and Chloe just allowing that shit to happen, and also just letting her walk away again without saying something poignant and powerful that would stay with her mom for the rest of her life about what a shitty parent and person she is. I didn't want a screaming match, I just wanted something to happen externally, not just Chloe telling us how she severed her mother from her heart and then thanking her as they said goodbye.

This book started as a solid 4-star, but it ended as a 2.75-star rounded up to 3. I think maybe the author needed to take a bit more time sitting with these ideas or better guidance from editors and this would've been a banger. The ideas are there, the characters were good, and the writing is solid, but the execution didn't work IMO.

Maybe this book resonates so much because as a librarian, we inherently understand the treasure of the library's collection of books. Or maybe it's because we know, intimately, the transformative power of reading. Regardless, Chloe and her siblings, along with Jasper, are characters who learn and grow, showing incredible character development and landing a spot on this librarian's RA list.

This was such a sweet book-think A Man Called Ove meets The Sweet Spot. I'm also a sucker for books about books!

Chloe is struggling as an almost librarian. She is the guardian for her three younger siblings. When she finds a rare old book in the library basement, she's hoping it might be worth something, but when looks inside it, she finds notes from two young lovers. She figures out that one of them is her cranky, slightly scary next-door neighbor. She begins to piece together his story and look at him differently. Meanwhile, she finds a little room for love too.

I gave this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 stars. I love this trope of the grumpy neighbor has a backstory and a heart. I fell in love with Cloe's family and Jasper. It has dual timelines and POV. All of my favorite things wrapped into a story to remember!

Told through multiple perspectives in dual timelines with a plot that includes a wonderful selection of literary references with scribbled messages in the margins of old books, the main character is a librarian who is intent on solving the mystery behind the identity of the two lovers who used books as a way to communicate in the 1960s.

This was such a sweet read! I love a dual timeline and I feel that this was executed pretty well. Both stories were cozy and romantic.

A book about books, this delightful novel will charm its way into your heart and settle there. Highly recommended!

THE LIBRARY OF BORROWED HEARTS by Lucy Gilmore (The Lonely Hearts Book Club) is another wonderful feel good book with plenty of references to titles, authors, and their characters. There are two time periods; one is 1960 where Jasper, a logger, and Catherine, library employee and daughter of a military commander, tentatively make each other's acquaintance by leaving notes in books. The other is present day where wannabe librarian Chloe is responsible for her rather eccentric siblings (15-year-old Trixie, and 11-year-old twins Theo and Noodle). Chloe discovers the decades old correspondence and uses that former attachment (and the search for more books related to it which she undertakes with Zach, a local outdoorsman) as an escape from a stressful reality. Turns out Jasper is her elderly neighbor and both he and young Chloe transform throughout the story. With special appeal to fans of tales like A Man Called Ove, THE LIBRARY OF BORROWED HEARTS is a light, diverting read filled with amusing banter and slow burn romance. The many book titles to which characters refer are especially fun and they are listed in an appendix, along with a Reader's Guide. Reading it made me smile – a lot; this would be a charming summer read for book clubs. Enjoy!

Thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the eGalley to review!

This was a fun read with a sweet romance and even sweeter budding friendship between our two main leads, brought together by the utterly romantic flirting exchanged in the margins of library books. Chloe, one of our two main leads, is a public library worker who has been trying to support herself and her younger siblings after their mother abandons them, and she is the one to find one of these books and is determined to find out who this couple is and what happened to them. She also ends up in her own budding romance. Jasper, her neighbor, the other main lead, and one half of the starring romantic couple (not exactly a spoiler), discovers that she has it and offers to pay thousands of dollars for it. Up until this point, these neighbors avoided each other at all costs but this is the start of their better understanding of one another and eventual friendship.

All of this was great and I adored the flashbacks to Jasper's romance, but then the twists (yes, plural) happened and the sigh I sighed is still ongoing in my soul. It all genuinely infuriated me and the reactions Jasper and Chloe have is appropriate, but then the book becomes unsure of the message it's trying to send and left me more frustrated. Really, only Chloe's closure made me happy. If I didn't love the characters of Jasper and Chloe so much, or Jasper's teenage romance, this whole later part of the book would have turned me off to recommending it. But it does have a happy ending, at least, and more or less I still enjoyed the book, so it wasn't a complete disappointment. I'd still recommend it.

Oh I had high hopes for this one after reading the synopsis. A bookish mystery. A librarian set on finding the two young lovers who wrote back and forth in the margins. All while trying to keep her family together and fed after her mother abandoned them.

But woof, the best part was the grumpy old neighbor and the relationship they had. I did NOT love how the ‘young lovers’ storyline unfolded and that knocked this down a bit for me.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was wonderful!

A fun and quick read, if over the top with its plot line, but isn’t that what you want in a book sometimes! Told from multiple different viewpoints, this is a love story from long ago and a modern found family story. Chloe has put her life on hold to work part time at the small town library she lives in, taking care of her 3 younger siblings after her mother abandoned them 2 years ago. When she’s going through old books in the library she finds an annotated - by two different people - book that intrigues her. Not only that, but her cranky old neighbor offers to buy it from, prompting Chloe to attempt to unravel a decades old mystery/love story.

Overall warm hearted and sweet. I think my only qualm with this is that I didn't really like one of the main characters and because she was so important to the plot, it made it hard at times!

Synopsis:

Upon discovering a rare edition of an old novel, librarian Chloe's life takes an unexpected turn. Inside the book, she uncovers a series of messages exchanged between lovers, piquing her interest. After further investigation, she realizes that her seemingly grumpy neighbor, Jasper, is one of the passionate correspondents. Intrigued by their story, Chloe becomes determined to locate the remaining books to unravel the whole tale. Chloe is also the guardian of her siblings, as her mother left them when she was at college.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the different timelines and points of view in the story. I admired Chloe's strength in caring for her siblings. She truly loved them and put them before herself. I enjoyed the bond between her siblings and their neighbor, Jasper. My heart hurt for Jasper. I was very upset at how his lover, Catherine, treated him and conflicted about whether I agreed with her actions. I resonated with Jasper's love for romance. I adored how Jasper longed for Catherine but was also sad because he wasted so much of his life being angry and sad about losing her. Ultimately, I felt like the love story told through books was enjoyable, and I felt like I was a part of the hunt for the books alongside the characters.

Love Always, Catherine

Thanks so much to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for gifting me the digital review copy.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an E-ARC of the Library of Borrowed Hearts. This was a delight to read - cozy and romantic. Highly recommend.

Chloe Sampson is not your average 20-something. She’s had to majorly pivot from pursuing her degree to raising her three rambunctious siblings, working in the library (but not as a librarian), struggling to make ends meet and battling her curmudgeonry next door neighbor who keeps every frisbee that flies in to her yard. Even name brand cereal is a luxury they can’t afford. When she finds an old book in the library basement full of written notes between two lovers she starts unraveling a mysterious and tragic love story that hits close to home.
The Library of Borrowed Hearts is a vibrant, heart warming story of love and found family. Two storylines criss-cross between the 1960s and present day. The characters are unique and quirky and the story moves quickly. Fans of Wuthering Heights will especially love the role the tragic romance plays in this novel. Highly recommend as a summer read or for anyone book lover looking for a light and enjoyable story.

If you love Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, you’re likely to enjoy Gilmore’s Library of Borrowed Hearts. And if you hate it (I do), then you’re still likely to like Gilmore’s nod to Brontë’s tale of doomed, sicko love. In Gilmore’s case, no one is doomed, the loves are pretty cool, there are two timelines and threading through the novel are BOOKS, certainly Wuthering Heights, but other favorites too, like Montgomery’s Anne books, The Secret Garden, and even the misogynistic infamous Tropic of Cancer (as a matter of fact it’s the book that sets off the narrative). It’s the story of many bookish people, reading books and living messy lives. And it moves, inexorably, unlike Heights, to unresolved HEAs, but overall, things look UP and no one will have to engage in necrophilia. I take that as a win and the publisher’s blurb will suffice for details:

Librarian Chloe Sampson has been struggling: to take care of her three younger siblings, to find herself, to make ends meet. She’s just about at the end of her rope when she stumbles across a rare edition of a book from the 1960s. Deciding it’s a sign of her luck turning, she takes it home with her—only to be shocked when her cranky hermit of a neighbor swoops in and offers to buy it for an exorbitant price. Intrigued, Chloe takes a closer look at the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins between two young lovers back when the book was new…one of whom is almost definitely Jasper Holmes, the curmudgeon next door.

And when she begins following the clues left behind, she discovers this isn’t the only old book in town filled with their romantic marginalia. This kickstarts a literary scavenger hunt that Chloe is determined to see through to the end. What happened to the two tragic lovers who corresponded in the margins of so many different library books? And what does it have to do with the old, sad man next door—who only now has begun to open his home to Chloe and her siblings? In a romantic tale that spans the decades, Chloe discovers that there’s much more to her neighbor than meets the eye. And in allowing herself to accept the unexpected friendship he offers, she learns that some love stories begin in the unlikeliest of places.

Gilmore’s novel is structured in two time periods, 1960 and the present, and alternates between the two. She wisely kept the setting as her fulcrum, never changing, a small town, Colville, in Washington state. As the narrative alternates between its two timelines, it changes narrative perspectives: grounding it initially in Chloe’s POV and then adding the voices of the two 1960s lovers, Jasper and Catherine (modelled after Heathcliff and Catherine without the bad blood or tragic ending, more a beautifully ironic comment on the eye-rolling toxicity of Brontë’s protags. Loved it.), and even Chloe’s adorably precocious siblings.

This makes Gilmore’s narrative sound an unholy mess; my reading experience belied this. I found it engaging and seamless, probably because Gilmore may alternate “voices,” but she keeps her narrative squarely in third person past tense. Gilmore’s characters are also compelling and loveable, which is not to say they don’t have their edgy moments. Gilmore’s character set, and it IS more ensemble piece than singular focus, say harsh and hurtful things, do hurtful things, but other than the one villain of the piece, as Gilmore herself has Chloe comment, they put love above self-interest. They’re difficult and make mistakes, but they’re the people who make the world better, plugging away at loving others and being responsible.

We have a good sense of Chloe’s ethos, for example, as Gilmore introduces us to her. Chloe’s is resolved, duty-bound, and a little depressed: “Despite the fact that I was little more than a drudge in my small Washington town — or, more likely, because of it — more of my free time was spent deep in the pages of a book. Unless you were super into hunting or fishing, there wasn’t much else to do around here. I worked and I took care of my family. I did things no one else wanted to do. And I read. Always, I read.” So did Jasper. So did Catherine. And that is how they met, wooed, and became lovers. And it’s in that book Chloe finds that she discovers not Miller’s salacious self-indulgent drivel, but a beautiful love between curmudgeon neighbour Jasper and the new girl in town back in 1960, Catherine.

Sixty years later, Chloe’s discovery leads from chapter to chapter and voice to voice to an unfolding that riffs on Brontë’s dark tale. But Gilmore stands with the romance genre. And even though there isn’t the classic romance narrative a romance reader would look for (there’s a romance, but it’s not what you think; there a possibility of a romance but not for whom you’d imagine), Gilmore stands on the side of the HEA angels, romance writers. In the end, Gilmore’s novel is closer in spirit to Wilde’s “Selfish Giant” than Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, more about renewal than stagnation, expressing more humour than despair. I loved every page of it. And you will too. Miss Austen, she too would be a goner if she put her caustic wit away. Gilmore’s novel also reminded me of another recent great one I read, Kate Clayborn’s The Other Side of Disappearing. If you’ve read and enjoyed Clayborn’s wonderful novel, you’ll be a goner for Gilmore’s funnier, softer version.

Lucy Gilmore’s The Library of Borrowed Hearts is published by Sourcebooks Casablanca and was released on April 30th. I received an e-galley, from Sourcebooks Casablanca, via Netgalley for the purpose of writing this review. This did not impede the honest and AI-free expression of my opinion.

The Library of Borrowed Hearts brought a lot of reading delight in the “curmudgeon meets a young person and they form a bond” trope. Several books have recently used this trope and I am becoming a huge fan of them!

In this story, the characters exist in two timelines - the 1960’s and current day.

In current day, Chloe is a young woman working hard to take care of her siblings after their mother walks away from them. Having to withdraw from college, Chloe is working at the local library and finds herself sorting books in the basement. She stumbles upon a book with writing in it and upon further examination, she realizes there are love letters and hints to other love letters written in the margins.

Meanwhile, at home, Chloe struggles with her elderly next door neighbor, Jasper, who seems to take delight in harassing her and her siblings, even going so far as to call protective services on them.

After yet another neighborly squirmish, Jasper appears one night and is shocked by the book Chloe is holding as she answers the door. It’s the book from the library basement that she brought home to see if she couldn’t figure out who wrote the love letters in the margins. Jasper gives Chloe a blank check in exchange for the book, telling her to fill the check in with what she deems is an acceptable amount for it. While Chloe could seek vengeance and write in an exorbitant amount, she doesn’t even though her siblings could get new shoes, clothes, name brand food and supplies with the much needed money.

This is the beginning of a new relationship between Jasper, the curmudgeon, and Chloe, the hard-working young woman. When she realizes Jasper is the author of half of the love letters, she begins to understand why he seems so angry and closed off.

This story was delightful and heartwarming as it shows the importance of second chances, friendship, forgiveness, and the family’s we choose to create. This was a solid four star read and one I’d definitely recommend if you enjoy the trope and/or Gilmore’s other works!