Love Walked In by Sarah Chamberlain (Sept 2, 2025) I loved Sarah’s 2024 release, The Slowest Burn, and so I was anxiously awaiting this one!
Mari Cole’s life is singularly focused on bookstores. She is uniquely skilled at reviving struggling indie shops and getting them back on track. Does she have friends? No. Does she date? No. She works on bookshops. And her newest puzzle is the iconic Ross and Co. bookshop in London. The multi-generational bookshop has a storied past but is struggling. Particularly since the grumpy new shop owner Leo Ross is reluctant to change any of what his grandfather did. Leo has known his entire life that his future was the bookshop and he’s sacrificed all of his personal interests for it. So how dare some overly sunshiny American come here and try to make him change things. But as they work together on a festival to celebrate the store’s history, Leo begins to see Mari’s tenacity in a new light while Mari begins to see the spark beneath Leo’s icy exterior.
loved the setup of Ross & Co. – a multi-generational, iconic shop struggling to find its place in the modern world. Mari’s journey toward friendship added warmth, and Leo’s growth in defining his own future felt authentic and heartfelt. That said, while The Slowest Burn was beautifully delicate in how it explored its characters’ vulnerabilities, I sometimes wished this story had slowed down in places to give those same emotional beats more room to breathe in lieu of some of the subplots that felt like they didn’t drive the primary plot forward.
🎧 Audiobook Thoughts: At 11 hours and 15 minutes, the narration by Kate Handford and Stewart Crank was a treat. Their performances perfectly captured Mari’s sunshine energy and Leo’s restrained grumpiness, making the push-and-pull between them even more enjoyable.
Book: 🌟🌟🌟💫
🎧 Audio performance: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫
🔥 Spice: 🌶️🌶️
Book Smart Kate 