Searching for many answers, in a bookshop

Synopsis

Everyone’s story has some magic. You just have to turn the page to find it…

As the sun rises over the little Provence village where single mother Adeline has escaped with her little girl Lili, she breathes deeply. This is their new beginning. Here, she can forget the lies her family told her. Here, she can start her story again.

Later she opens the door to the town’s tiny bookstore, where she is to work, ready to meet the mysterious owner Monique for the first time.

She expected an ordinary bookshop. But this bookstore feels somehow different… magical. Breathing in the smell of books, she feels a jolt of something. It feels like a new chapter beginning.

As she gets to know the villagers – including the handsome Andre and friendly Michel – she starts to believe in the magic of this new start. But can a runaway like Adeline ever find what she’s looking for? Or is a happy-ever-after just another fiction?

A totally gorgeous, escapist, romantic novel – set in rural Provence – by the bestselling author of A Year at the French Farmhouse and The Bordeaux Bookclub.

My review

Adaline is at loss after discovering something devastating after the death of her mother. Not knowing who she is anymore, she decides to accept a new job in a book shop in a quaint little village in the French Provence, together with her little daughter Lili. But working with and for Monique is for sure interesting, to say the least. Because whenever Monique is around, there is something in the air, even something magical. Adapting to the French way of life, and learning more about Monique and her beliefs, Adaline starts to feel more at home than she ever imagined. She truly liked life in this community, meeting new and interesting people, like the customers of the book shop, Andre of the bakery and Michel, who looks after his aunt Monique. But will Adaline also find the answers she is looking for?

Gillian Harvey is the kind of author that doesn’t write the stories that are all happy – happy – joy – joy. Not that she writes depressing stories, but she writes stories with characters that have been through or are going through a lot.

And that is exactly the kind of character that Adaline is. Even if it isn’t made known from the start what is haunting her, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand what she had discovered and why she is at loss.

I admired her in a way to just pack up and leave her London life behind and start over in this little village in the Provence. I don’t know if I would have the courage to do that, leave everything and everyone you know behind. Especially as Adaline chose Provence on the tiniest clue she could have to find the missing answers.

Working in a book shop for sure is a dream coming true for booklovers, like me, and I was eager to learn how Adaline would embrace her new life and new job. But just like Adaline, I was a bit thrown off my game reading how Monique runs her shop, and just the way Monique is in general.

And I mean this in the kindest possible way, but Monique for sure is something special! I don’t truly believe in what she believes, but it fits her perfectly. That doesn’t mean that Monique is a gullible or ‘simple’ person, but more that she is open to everything around her.

Even if our opinions differ on that matters, it’s clear that Monique is a lovely character, a warm person.

It was sweet to see how Adaline is adapting to her new life, meeting new people, all the while trying to find the answers to her so many questions. And seeing how the ‘Monique – ness’ is rubbing off on her, was a nice touch.

Of course Lili is the real delight of the book! Children are so resilient, and I liked it how easy she adapted to her life in France, and how she just embraces everything that comes on her way.

In this book we see how a bad revelation can turn in something good, as Adaline starts the story on a bad way, but slowly we see her finding joy and happiness again. We see Adaline change from a broken person in a person that becomes lighter, fights off even the loneliness and finds so many things she needs in her life, people, sense, family and more.

It was great reading this story about a young woman in search of something, but finding so much more than she expected. There is a special something in this book, not exactly magical but something close to it. And that something for sure added an extra sparkle to this book that I loved devouring!