Author: Mollie Rushmeyer
Narrator: Lesa Wilson
Publisher: HQ Fiction
Genre: Historical Fiction, Christian Fiction,
Source: Hoopla
My Review:
The Bookshop of Secrets is the first book I have read by Mollie Rushmeyer. It was her debut novel in 2022.
The story is well-written, but it felt slow in parts (maybe because I listened to the audio). I appreciated the themes of redemption, forgiveness, and hope that was present in the story.
Read for:
🕮 dysfunctional family
🕮 found family
🕮 hidden treasure
🕮 missing books
🕮 bookstore setting
🕮 secrets
🕮 multi-generational friendships
🕮 pirates
Trigger warnings: escape from human trafficking, a character with dementia, PTSD triggers, and complicated family relationships.
★★★/5
Synopsis (Amazon):
A collection of lost books holds the clues to her family's legacy…and her future.
Hope
Sparrow has mastered the art of outrunning her tragic past, learning
never to stay anywhere too long and never to allow anyone control over
her life again. Coming to Wanishin Falls in search of her family's
history already feels too risky. But somewhere in the towering stacks of
this dusty old bookshop are the books that hold Hope's last ties to her
late mother—and to a rumored family treasure that could help her start
over.
Only, the bookshop is in shambles, and the elderly owner is
in the beginning stages of dementia and can’t remember where the books
lie. To find the last links to the loved ones she's lost, Hope must stay
and accept help from the townsfolk to locate the treasured volumes.
Each secret she uncovers brings her closer to understanding where she
came from. But the longer she stays in the quaint town, the more people
find their way into the cracks in her heart. And letting them in may be
the greatest risk of all…
I read this one in 2023 and rated it 3 stars, too. The pacing was slow; I think because the author did too much telling rather than showing. And I remember wishing their search for the treasure had unfolded a little faster. Not a bad book, but not a stellar one either.
ReplyDeleteLark, exactly. And, I was reading another SO similar, I think it spoiled both of them for me.
DeleteBased on the title alone, this one looks interesting. May be one I'll have to add to that someday TBR I have. ;)
ReplyDeleteRissi, it does have an interesting storyline.
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