Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: 🌶️

by Evie Woods – This is the story of lives changed by books. In the 1940s, Opaline escapes an arranged marriage and finds refuge at bookstores in Paris and Ireland as she continues to evade her overbearing older brother. In the present day, Martha is starting over, running from an abusive relationship and looking to define a new future. That’s when she meets Henry, who is searching for a bookshop that might be a clue to a missing manuscript. Opaline, Martha, and Henry are all searching for something that will set their life on the right path and they will have their lives forever transformed by a vanishing bookshop.

Told in a dual timeline with Opaline, Martha and Henry each serving as narrators, the book unfolds slowly at first but as we learn more and more magic reveals itself, the pace picks up quickly and I got really engrossed in each of their journeys and as their stories intertwined, I was profoundly moved by the message of perseverance and belief in being worthy of being a central character.

The audiobook is VERY good. I started with the print version but when I gave the audio a listen, I decided that I preferred it.