This book has one of the most dramatic openings I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of novels. It’s 1931 in Nottingham, England, and seventeen-year-old Emma, ensconced in her father’s bookshop, is engrossed in her favorite novel, Jane Austen’s “Emma,” when she realizes the building around her has caught fire. With her father’s help, she stumbles into the street, only to watch him collapse and die as the bookstore implodes. In just a few pages, Emma has lost her sole family member, her home, and her source of income.

By the time we meet her again, eight years later, she has married, too young and unhappily, lost her husband to a car crash, and struggles to support herself and their seven-year-old daughter, Olivia, on her widow’s pension. In 1930s Britain, companies were legally barred from hiring married women or widows with children, so although Emma has barely passed twenty-five and would gladly work, she can’t apply for a job because of the marriage ban. But nor can she pay the rent, no matter how hard she squeezes every shilling. When a chance encounter leads to an opportunity for work at a lending library, Emma takes the plunge and identifies herself as Miss Taylor. Fortunately for her, the person hiring is also a woman, so even when the truth comes out during that first interview, the manager agrees to cover for her.

End of story, one might think, but readers who’ve done the math will already have realized that Emma’s problems have just begun. Three weeks after she starts her training, Hitler invades Poland, and Britain declares war. Nottingham, although not London, has enough factories to make it a likely target, and the city puts pressure on all parents to evacuate their children to the countryside. It’s Emma’s struggles to balance her own need to earn money to support her daughter while ensuring the survival of both her child and herself that make up the bulk of the book.

So much fiction has been written about World War II that it’s hard to find a new angle on the conflict. But this heartwarming novel succeeds, not only in making readers root for Emma and Olivia and their friends but also in offering a more complex picture of the changes in women’s status during and after the war. The marriage bans, by the way, remained in place until 1975.

I plan to interview this author for the New Books Network (link below) around the time of the book’s release.

The Booklover's Library
by Madeline Martin
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
A heartwarming story about a mother and daughter in wartime England and the power of books that bring them together, by the bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London.
I have read many of Martin's books and she is on the top of my list! 5 stars for this one!
I absolutely love this gorgeous cover for The Booklover's Library as it incorporates so many aspects of the book.
- I love how the parchment under the title is a nod to The Last Bookshop in London since this book channels those same heartwarming, Homefront vibes
- I love the mother and daughter and their obvious bond
- I love the warm, cozy colors
- And I LOVE that one of the books on the bottom shelf has an eyelet at the top of the book, just like the ones from the real Booklover's Library.
For readers of historical fiction: Brianna Labuskes, bestselling author of The Librarian of Burned Books and my favorite Kristin Harmel.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Booklover's Library by Madeline Martin.

A mother daughter duo doing their best to survive WWII in England, while keeping their family intact. Married women aren't permitted to work during that time, but what about widows who have no other way to support themselves? And children are being shipped off to the country side to keep safe from bombings, but what about a young girl who has already lost so much? These are some of the challenges that the two main characters face, while making friends and perhaps lovers along the way.

This was good, but it's also been done, a lot. I did enjoy the story, but it was hard for me to get past the sheer length of it. It was SO LONG, like probably twice a long as it needed to be to still tell an enriching story. I did become frustrated with that fact. However, if you enjoy WWII historical fiction, this was a worthy read.

I like stories set in bookstores and libraries, so I was eager to try Madeline Martin’s The Booklover’s Library. According to the blurb, it’s the story of a mother and daughter who are torn apart by war, but brought together by, among other things, a shared love of books. Sounded like my catnip, so I plunged right in.

Emma Taylor, a young widow with a daughter to raise, is desperate for a job. She’s pawned the last of the first editions she inherited when her father’s bookstore burned down and he died shortly afterwards. Emma is warming herself in the café next to Boots Booklovers Library when she overhears that a position among the staff has opened up, so she quickly applies for the job. She wiggles her wedding ring off as she does so, because single mothers are too much of a liability for employers, but her basic honesty makes her admit the truth. Thankfully she gets the job, on the condition that no one knows she has a daughter, and one problem seems to be solved.

Another one is just beginning, though. When, in 1940, the war in Europe comes home with the Blitz, Olivia has to be sent away to the countryside. Missing her desperately, Emma confides in her landlady, who teaches her to knit so she can make a sweater for Olivia, and Emma befriends a coworker at the library as well. She and the coworker collect scrap metal as part of the war effort, and Emma starts to discover what a support a found family can be. But Olivia’s intense homesickness makes her run away in a desperate attempt to come back home, and Emma tries to interest her in books, partly so they’ll have something in common and partly to give Olivia an escape from reality.

If this seems like a lot of different issues in the same story, that’s exactly what reading this book felt like. There’s also the coworker’s engagement to a soldier who goes MIA, someone trying to sabotage Emma’s job, her cantankerous neighbor, the handsome patron of the library who’s not in uniform, the in-laws Olivia doesn’t get along with, the boy who bullies Olivia, and probably a few I’ve forgotten. It was a lot to keep track of at the same time.

The setting of war-time Nottingham feels very realistic and the resolution of the bully plotline is heartwarming, because Olivia is a chip off the old block as far as kindness is concerned. But at the same time, the story is very episodic, and I didn’t feel there was enough focus on certain subplots - there couldn’t be, because there just isn’t enough space to develop everything. I don’t even remember anything about the handsome patron except that there’s a good reason he hasn’t enlisted, but there’s not much substance to his romance with Emma. They’re both good people who get along very well with each other, rather than people with flaws that will complicate a relationship.

That said, I did enjoy the subplot of Olivia’s transformation into a book lover. At first she has no interest in reading and would rather listen to the wireless, with her schoolwork suffering as a result. So Emma starts reading aloud to her from Anne of Green Gables, and by the fourth chapter Olivia is hooked. chapter Olivia is hooked. The world of literature opens up to her, and I loved how Olivia asks for the definitions of words while pronouncing them as they look in print, so Olivia pronounces “epoch” as “ee-potch”. More of this would have been awesome, but unfortunately the poor girl is More of this would have been awesome, but unfortunately poor Olivia is also shortchanged by the numerous events and people crowding their way into the story.

In summary, if you’d like a slice-of-life book set in Nottingham during the Blitz, The Booklover’s Library is a fine way to pass some time. Despite its flaws, it’s a quick, easy and at times heartwarming read, so it gets a recommendation.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. An emotional read about what a mother had to go through to keep her daughter safe during World War II in England. This book starts when the main character Emma is just a teenager and follows her life from before, during, and after. This period of World War II was not familiar to me before reading this book. I enjoyed it. I went out and bought her book, The Last Bookshop in London.

WOW!!!! Martin never disappoints. An emotional, heartwarming and gripping story of a mother and her daughter and what she has to do to keep her safe.

Madeline Martin uses bookshops and libraries as beautiful vehicles to write about everyday people coping with personal trauma and the horror of war. Such a formula may lead you to think these stories are repetitive, but her work has taken readers from Washington, DC, London, Warsaw, Lisbon, and Paris. Each story is unique and each character an individual you can root for.

In this story, we follow Emma from her late teens, when she watched her father die as their home and bookshop burned down, to her late-twenties, when she gets a job at the bookstore inside Boots Chemist (yes, that Boots) and grapples with sending her daughter to the country at the start of the Blitz.

I knew about Operation Pied Piper, but following a mother as she dealt with the heartache and guilt of sending her daughter away multiple times made the difficulties of single parents during that time hit home.

Have a few hankies ready for this one!

A heartwarming piece of historical fiction taking place during WWII in Nottingham (I’ve read tons of books about the home front in London so this is new for me!). It is 1939 and 25-year old Emma is a single mother whose husband died five years before in a car accident. She manages to get a much needed job at the subscription library in the back of Boot’s (UK pharmacy), which was difficult and UK law at the time made it illegal to hire married women or widows with children. The story is of Emma’s war — working, volunteering with the WVA, but mostly dealing with the trauma of having to send her 7-year old daughter away to the country for her own safety.

My favorite thing about historical fiction such as this is the way we get the full and individual experience of living through times that are too easily summed up in history books in terms of events and casualty numbers, and not on the experience of individuals. I particularly liked the way Martin added all sorts of details of which I was unaware. I loved the way the subscription library worked and the explanation of why public libraries didn’t meet the needs of all subscribers. Librarians at the subscription libraries were responsible for curating loans for each individual patron. I would have been very happy to have that job! Special “red label” books such as Lady Chatterly’s Lover had to be specifically requested and were not allowed on the floor. There was plenty of story about the patrons of the library, their reading habits, and the librarians who helped them. Plenty of other new details (for me) as well. One character turns out to be part of the “Mass Observation.” This is a program started in 1937 that continued for 30 years. The “observers” carefully noted down what people talked about and did. Apparently it was originally started to capture the feelings of people about King Edward’s abdication, but of course continued to be valuable once the war started. And did you know that pet owners were “ordered” to put their pets down at the start of the war to save food for people?

Some romance, plenty of hardships, and always enough community pulling together when necessary. I liked the characters — books like this focus on the best in people which (fortunately) does come out in times of trouble. Of course I also loved the story of how books and reading help us when we need them. It’s a good pairing with one of her other books — The Last Bookshop in London — and there is a cameo appearance of that very bookshop and its booksellers in this volume.

A story of a mother's love and the heartbreaking choices she must make to keep her daughter safe during WWII. I learned a lot about the membership-based lending libraries in England prior to and during the war.

Historical fiction is not my usual genre but when you add books and librarians I had to try it and was not disappointed. I have read all the books she has written on WWII, which have become a must-read. This book is also set during WWII and is not about the war but about the people back home supporting their soldiers and families. My favorite line in the book is "He told me that the world is full of readers, some just haven't found the right book yet." This book is a gem and is not what it first seems to be. Thank you, NetGalley, the publisher, and Madeline Martin for the opportunity to read this book in advance!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6533546928

The Booklover's Library is a sweet and heartfelt novel about a young, widowed mother during the start of WWII. As a widow with a child, she's barred from the workforce but desperate to find something to keep her and her daughter afloat. Applying for a job at The Booklover's Library (a lending library for subscribers) Emma agrees to keep quiet about her daughter in exchange for work. But her daughter is still her main concern. With blackouts and air raids, how can she keep Olivia safe while she's away? The emphasis really is on a mother's love and the relationship between Emma and Olivia, and those around them, as well as their response to hardship and difficulty -- and this was all beautifully done.

Thank you Netgalley for this eARC!

I don't generally gravitate toward historical novels, but this one caught my eye and I'm glad I did! I was thoroughly engrossed from page 1 and enjoyed the relationships that Emma had- with her daughter, with her landlady, with her neighbors, and even with her father. Also, I found the setting of the Book Lovers Lending Library fascinating, especially as it was based on fact. The tension in the novel came from Emma's decision to send Olivia away during the war or to keep her with her, and the subsequent consequences of each decision she made in this regard. The mystery about the misplaced books in the library felt a little weak to me, but it didn't bother me at all. For me, the story was mostly about relationships, friendship, books, and people who love books. Also a little love story thrown in!

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

**Review of The Booklover's Library**

I don't typically gravitate towards historical fiction, but the cover of this book intrigued me, so I decided to give it a chance. I ended up finishing it in less than a day because I couldn't put it down.

"The Booklover's Library" is a touching and heartfelt story set at the onset of WWII, focusing on Emma, a young, widowed mother. Struggling to find work due to her status as a widow with a child, Emma is desperate to support herself and her daughter. She finds a job at The Booklover's Library, a lending library for subscribers, under the condition that she keeps her daughter a secret. Despite her new job, Emma's primary concern is always the safety of her daughter, Olivia, amidst the blackouts and air raids.

The novel captures the emotional and physical challenges Emma faces in keeping Olivia safe during the war. It's a story that is both heart-wrenching and uplifting, centering on a mother's love and the relationship between Emma and Olivia. The characters' resilience in the face of hardship is both inspiring and moving.

Books that deal with families during the air attacks in England during WWII are often deeply emotional, and this one is no different. However, it manages to balance the heavy themes with a sense of hope and lightness.

The secondary characters in this book are quirky, lively, and so much fun to follow. I love stories that feature unexpected friendships and connections with unlikely individuals, and this book delivered on that front.

Overall, "The Booklover's Library" is a warm and engaging WWII novel that tugs at the heart and is an absolute joy to read. Martin has firmly established herself among my favorite authors, and this book only solidifies that position.

Madeline Martin has done it again. This amazing novel is set to release in September and you won't want to miss it! One of the things I appreciate about Madeline's books is that they are about heavy topics but she writes them without making them feel too dark or hopeless.
This book focused on the story of a young widow and her daughter who must be sent away to the country during the bombings in England. Emma (FMC) works at a lending library inside Boots Pharmacy during the war, helping their subscribers find the perfect books. As the daughter of a bookshop owner, good books are practically part of Emma's DNA. I loved the friendships in this story and how reading is woven through the book as something that can help us cope with difficult circumstances. I appreciated Emma's belief that everyone can become a reader if they find the correct book! I also loved the cameo from The Last Bookshop in London (still my favorite book by Madeline).
This was such a sweet story about a mother and daughter! I had no idea that single mothers who were widowed had such a difficult time finding employment during this time period. It was interesting to learn more about what life in England was like during WWII.
You'll definitely want to put this book on your TBR for this fall!

I always love Madeline Martin’s novels featuring books and wartime experiences!

What a great, great cover!

Martin takes readers to Nottingham, England in 1931 and introduces us to a fellow bibliophile and Booklover’s Librarian, Emma Taylor. Like many of Martin’s readers, Emma finds comfort in books and has relied on them throughout her life for comfort in difficult moments. When tragedy strikes and Emma is forced to leave the Tower Bookshop in Beeston, she becomes a librarian of a lending library.

I’d never heard of this concept before (lending library versus a public library) and was intrigued to discover that they were located in many Boot’s chemists throughout England. I got sucked into a rabbit hole Googling ‘red label books’, ‘Class A subscribers’, ‘marriage bars’ and the social research organization, ‘Mass Observation.’ Although I had read a few books featuring the children’s evacuation in wartime England, Martin was able to bring a fresh perspective and I felt compelled to read further to find out what happened to Olivia and if she was ever reunited with her mother.

Martin’s novel is rich with nostalgia from her previous stories, addresses the stress of single parenting during wartime, features quirky characters, and is light on romance. It reminds readers that money doesn’t buy happiness and that we need to look for it within and foster it.

I was gifted this copy by Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

After reading The Last Bookshop in London this author became an instant favorite and I've been quick to pick up all her work since then. So when I saw that The BookLover's Library was a story about books and libraries, motherhood, WWII, and a little romance -- I couldn't start reading soon enough. I grabbed a copy of this newest novel from Netgalley as soon as I saw it was available, and fairly inhaled this beautiful story.

The Booklover's Library is a sweet and heartfelt novel about a young, widowed mother during the start of WWII. As a widow with a child, she's barred from the workforce but desperate to find something to keep her and her daughter afloat. Applying for a job at The Booklover's Library (a lending library for subscribers) Emma agrees to keep quiet about her daughter in exchange for work. But her daughter is still her main concern. With blackouts and air raids, how can she keep Olivia safe while she's away?

First of all, I loved everything about this story. (I especially loved the cross-over to Martin's first novel, and the quick cameo from some beloved past characters. In many ways, this story felt reminiscent of The Last Bookshop in London -- which gave me all the nostalgia for that read, while still feeling fresh and new,)

Books about families who had to send their children away during the air attacks in England in WWII are always such heartwrenching stories, and this was no exception. But while it was a moving story that tugged on the heartstrings, it still left you feeling good and had a lightness to it overall. The emphasis really is on a mother's love and the relationship between Emma and Olivia, and those around them, as well as their response to hardship and difficulty -- and this was all beautifully done.

The secondary characters in this book were quirky and lively and so much fun to follow along with. I love stories about unexpected friendships and connections with unlikely individuals, and this book gave all of that. As someone who prefers romance to be a secondary storyline within books, I appreciated how the romance here was sweet and lovely and added to the story without taking over the plot.

Overall, this was a lovable and lighter-feeling WWII novel that absolutely tugged at the heart and was such a joy to read. Martin easily earned her place on my shelf amongst my favorite authors, and this book simply cements that fact.

I received the ebook copy as an ARC from NetGalley. Thank you for this treasure!
I would say that I have read numerous books about WWII, but this one was very different and was almost a tribute to what books can do for us through different stages in our lives. I absolutely adored this novel, and was even thoroughly engrossed by the author’s note at the end. I will usually skip those, or just skim them, but it was just as good as the rest had been.
Here are some tidbits from the book that I just loved:
-“I do love rereading books when it’s been a while,” she said excitedly… “Isn’t it remarkable how the same story can be so very different depending on when you read it?”
-She always had admired readers who ventured outside of their natural genres. Those were often the people who had the greatest empathy, the most understanding of others around them, and the broadest appreciation for the world.
-…the world is full of readers, some just haven’t found the right book yet.
-“I do enjoy reading it myself,” Olivia said. “It’s like my brain drinking in something good, like warm chocolate milk.”
-Truly, there was nothing better than the companionable silence that fell between readers in a quiet room, each entirely lost in their own worlds.
-Everyone knew that reader who stayed up beyond their bedtime to finish the book, then savored its final moments as they drifted off to sleep.

Really good period story that shared many details of what it was like in England during WWII. The story showed the difficult trials women faced in a patriarchal society.

Martin's book, set during World War II, is not a war novel per se, but a novel about the people who endured and sacrificed. Martin's research about the subscription library where our heroine works is spot on. The story tears at your heart as you realize the sacrifices made by people to keep loved ones safe. Can you imagine sending a child to someone you do not know so the child escapes the danger of dying in a bombing. The plot center around a young widow who must lie to get a job and the people who support her. An excellent historical work!

Book Review:
The Book Lover's Library by Madeline Martin
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance
Publishers Release Date: September 10, 2024

Summary:
Emma's life has been far from easy. Left a single mother to precocious Olivia after the tragic death of both her husband and father. A young woman she finds herself trying to make ends meet, living in Nottingham, England, as war, once again threatens the nation. As she sells her most previous possessions to a pond shop, she takes a chance and enquires of a possible job and finds herself fortunate enough to find employment at the Book Lover's Library. Soon, she makes friends and finds herself enjoying matching customers with wonderful books. Despite that, her most significant concern is dear Olivia, who struggles in school, shows little interest in books, and whose safety in Nottingham is not secure. How can she ensure her daughters safety while she is away at work all day? Should she even be working in a time when most married women aren't permitted to do so?

Thoughts:
I am a big fan of Martin's writing. I have yet to read a book written by her that has not caught my immediate attention. This book was no different. I loved Emma's story. Olivia reminded me of a few of my own children, especially my one daughter. I enjoyed the relationship she had with her dear neighbor lady, who became a safe place and mother figure to her!
The incorporation of so many great books into this story is a theme each of Martin's books has, and I hope that as she pens more that she will continue to incorporate them in her future ones.
This is an easy, enjoyable read that underlines the importance of family, relationships, and the power of books to unite individuals in meaningful relationships.
I loved it and you will too. Add it to your wish list it's coming September 2024.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫