The British Booksellers

Kristy Cambron’s latest novel, The British Booksellers, develops a romance from the first pages as adolescent farmer’s son Amos Darby pines for blue-blood Lady Charlotte Terrington. Their background is enough to keep them apart, but her eventual match with another of her station, the future Earl of Harcourt, drives a further wedge between them as the First World War sweeps into England.

Charlotte and Amos are clearly connected through their wit, their love of books, and the belief that they must each honor their respective families. Thirty years passes and the two find themselves in friendly competition across the street from one another, each running a bookstore in Coventry. They cater to different types of clientele, and secrets from their past keep them from even being civil to one another. As time passes and they grow farther and farther apart, a strange American visitor forces them to reconsider what they both think they know of the past.

Written with the kind of detail that is necessary in a novel set in such familiar locations and time periods, The British Booksellers is as much an examination of the dangers of social class as it is a celebration of the power of honesty. I didn’t see some of the plot twists coming which made the ending that much sweeter. If you’re a fan of Fiona Davis, you’ll likely love this novel.