Book Review: The Printed Letter Bookshop

By Katherine Reay
Thomas Nelson, 2019
336 pages

High powered Chicago attorney Madeline Cullen has fond memories of the weeks she spent in her Aunt Maddie’s bookshop the summer that she was thirteen. But family can be complicated, and Madeline has spoken to Maddie only occasionally since her father became estranged from his sister in the years after that summer. When Maddie dies unexpectedly, Madeline is surprised to learn that she is the sole inheritor of her entire estate, including The Printed Letter Bookshop.

Recently passed over for a promotion, Madeline goes to Eagle Valley to lick her wounds and assess the bookshop for potential sale. What she finds is a financially struggling shop full of memories, and Janet and Claire, employees and dear friends of her late aunt. As the women work side by side to save the shop, they become confidants and cheerleaders as they support each other through the really hard stuff of life.

As Madeline begins to dig deeper into the rift in her family she learns that the circumstances were not exactly what she though they were as a young teenager. Answers could bring healing and a new direction, but first Madeline and her friends must overcome the biggest challenge The Printed Letter has faced yet.

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Thanks to TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy of The Printed Letter Bookshop to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Printed Letter Bookshop is the perfect read for someone who likes to feel all the feels. It’s characters run the emotional gambit, experiencing grief, joy, loneliness, camaraderie, anger, and forgiveness.

There are three perspectives that swap throughout the novel. Madeline, Janet, and Claire take turns sharing the narrative through their eyes and each character is well-developed and likable despite her individual issues. I noticed early on that Madeline and Janet’s parts are written from a first person point of view, while Claire is represented in the third person. I thought this was odd, but it makes sense later on as you get to know the characters a little better and learn a little more about their dynamics with each other. It’s a very interesting detail that I appreciated, both as a writer and a reader.

The Printed Letter Bookshop has a few threads of romantic love woven through the story, but the main focus is friendship and family. Relationships of all kinds are explored and there is a big emphasis on good female friendships. It definitely passes the Bechdel test as the women in the book help each other work through issues of faith and identity.

One more fun thing – as you might imagine, books play a crucial role in this story. Included at the end is a master list of every title mentioned in this book, in the order that they appear. How cool is that?

I really enjoyed this book, just I did the only other Katherine Reay book I’ve ever read, The Austen Escape. She is an author that I will be keeping an eye on, and I hope to get to some of her backlist titles soon.