Rosie Howard

I think owning a bookshop by the seashore would be a lovely way to spend my life. Being able to live above said bookshop? Even better.

Jules grew up in the town of Portneath, where her dear Aunt Flo owned Capelthorne Books. Aunt Flo is just the latest to caretake the amazing small bookshop which has been in Portneath for nearly 100 years. When Jules’s mother Maggie leaves her a message that she must come home immediately due to Aunt Flo’s demise, Jules panics. After all, Aunt Flo was show more more of a mother/grandmother to Jules than her own mother Maggie.

In London, Jules works for a small publishing house with an evil headmaster. When Jules asks for a bit of time off to tend to her elderly aunt, her boss will not comply. Furthermore, she essentially tells Jules, be here Monday morning or don’t come back at all. Jules is owed the time off. Family is family however, and Jules is not going to put her job ahead of her loved ones needing her.

Turns out that Aunt Flo definitely did need her, but her demise was seriously exaggerated. In any case, now Jules is home. She realizes how old and frail Aunt Flo is, and that it is her turn to be there for Aunt Flo. Jules goes about getting Aunt Flo settled downstairs and taking over the running of the bookshop.

Until an empty building across the street is unveiled to be another bookshop! Even worse, it is owned by the Montbeau’s eldest, Roman. The Montbeaus and Capelthornes have a longstanding feud. It goes back to a drunken card game some 100 years ago, but it is still going strong.

Roman is a beautiful man, and Jules is once again smitten, other than her disdain for the family and now the bookshop. Yet, when the two are forced together over and over again, it becomes clear that maybe it’s time to let the feud die with the previous generation.

Excellent read. Quick, cute, boy and girl enemy trope. Still I loved the play on the Montagues and Capulets with not only the names but the plot. The Capelthorne bookshop sounds like a dream of a place, and there are so many side stories in this novel to keep you enchanted. The characters are very likable, even enemy Roman. I could read about these two again and again. Or even the whole town. Portneath is a place I’d love to inhabit. show less

“But I'm not going anywhere,” Jess protested.
“Not now, but you will, and when you do---when you are ready---you will unpack these boxes and it will be like I am standing there beside you; all our memories, all our precious times together, wrapped up in these books... Trust me. You'll see.”

The Littlest Library was an incredibly cozy and comforting story about early thirties Jess moving to a new village after the grandmother who raised her dies. Jess is a librarian, which seems to be a show more dying profession, especially when the library she works at closes. Feeling the loss of grandmother Mimi, she takes a drive to clear her head and ends up in a small country village named Middlemas. There her car stalls and she stops to look at an old red phone box, that now seems to be the bathroom for lads coming back from the pub, and stumbles into an open house for the small cottage that sits behind the phone box. Even though the neighbor interrupts her from looking at the cottage, he's handsome but very grumpy about her stalled car blocking the road, she's still charmed by what the cottage, she mostly just saw the pond and gardens, could mean for her future.

For hours her mind chattered and whirred, as she stared up at the sky through the skylight chastising herself for her idiocy, buying a house in the middle of nowhere, giving up everything she had ever known, for an uncertain future alone among strangers.

Jess' parents died in a car accident when she was four and with the recent death of her grandmother, she's even more scared to love and put herself out there because, to her, everyone leaves anyway. When her grandmother was dying of cancer, she made Jess promise to be more adventurous, so calling the Realtor and buying the cottage, almost sight unseen, is Jess trying to live life fully. The cottage ends up needing a ton of work and there are bats in the loft that the local bat warren, handsome grump neighbor, says she can't get rid of, but she's actually starting to make some friends. Her childhood friend Hannah has been her only connection and since Hannah lives in New Zealand, Jess needs these connections.

“Oh God, it's you,” he said.

After Jess gets settled in Middlemas, she slowly but surely gets welcomed into the village townspeople fold. She gets pushed into cleaning up the old phone box and turning it into a library, using her precious grandmother's books. Throughout the story, people seem to be borrowing the right book at the right time and Mimi's legacy and warm advice gets carried on through the segments she underlined or the little messages she wrote in the books. I thought this was a lovely way to bring in the love and power of books and their stories.

And now she had the pleasure of sharing her books---her memories---with her new community.

There's Jess' grief over the recent loss of her grandmother, some of the secondary character stories have adultery, sisterly animosity, town rivalry, marriage dynamics, an ex-wife causing trouble, and just general life issues but while you feel the importance to the characters, as the reader, you're never drug down too much by them as the story keeps it's warm cozy tone throughout.

One thing Jess did know was that she was home and life was full of nothing but possibilities.

This is a book club fiction story, the romance between Jess and the neighbor, Aidan, has a kiss at around 50% but he's the one dealing with the ex-wife drama and thinks he can't really start anything with Jess so he can protect his pre-teen daughter from her mother's jealousy. Jess' attraction to Aidan is always there but Jess dealing with trying to get her life on track, making friends, putting herself out there, and finding a job that fulfills her soul instead of crushing it, is the main story here. There's some ending wrenches, a woman trying to get the phone box Little Library closed and Jess maybe having to move for a job, to create some worrisome feelings. However, the ending continues the promise of comforting and we even get a happily for now for our little romance. I can see this story being a favorite comfort read for many, the townspeople characters were many and varied but all the interconnecting friendships, especially with Jess, had them feeling like cherished friends. If looking for a sweet and comforting read that will transport you to the English countryside and has the love of books at the heart of it's story, then The Littlest Library needs to be your go to pick. show less

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Because she needed extra complications like a hole in the head, and nothing good ever came of a Capelthrone having anything to do with a Montbeau.

It's been thirteen years since Jules embarrassed herself in front of her forbidden crush, Roman, but of course he's the first person she sees and has to share a cab with when she dashes home from London when her mother calls her saying her show more great-aunt Flo had an emergency. And of course, he's opening a rival bookstore right across the street from her decades owned family one. When Jules finds herself staying longer than she thought, she's all-in with battling Roman, and her inopportune crush on him.

Roman liked a challenge, and Jules, he suspected with some pleasure, was a worthy adversary.

If you're a frequent reader of this author, you'll immediately feel at home in this little English countryside town, where many of her previous couples make their home and make appearances (The Littlest Library). You could start here as there's not a important backstory or plot threads to know but you'll probably be curious about some of the romances featured and want to search out their books. This followed the previous books' vibes and formula, cozy atmosphere, a little awkward not quite sure of herself but determined female main character, a handsome male main character that gently pokes at her but also tries to take care of her in little ways, some family drama/issues, and small town issues.

As if she could ever have truly loved a Montbeau.

There's obviously some play with their last names, Capelthorne and Montbeau, and the Romeo and Juliet themes are brought up a good amount. It's centuries old family drama, with Jules and Roman not quite sure exactly what divided and caused the bad blood in their families but it does play into some of their current drama. Roman's rival bookstore (there is credible reason he opened a bookstore) and though it takes a while to be revealed, an obvious looming issue that will deliver the third act breakup between the two regarding the lease of Jule's family bookstore that is held by the Montbeaus. With a smattering of Roman's point-of-view readers get a look into his family issues, an overbearing father, and mostly told from Jule's pov, we see the distance between her and her mother and the closeness between her and her great-aunt Flo. There was also a fascinating plot thread with a diary/grimoire found in their bookstore that belonged to one of Jule's female ancestors that brought in historical elements about wise women/witches and the witch trials in England in the 1600s. I wish the story had kept the focus more on the romance, bookstore rivalry, and witch elements, when it veered into some women's fiction meandering, Jules just living her days and flitting around the town, the pace dragged for me, especially in the second half, I feel some just needed to be edited down/out.

And it just felt so right.

The romance had the tension from the bookstore battle but all kept pretty light, I wouldn't call it an incredibly strong focus in this but it was an enjoyable additive. There was some, feeling, forced righteousness to Jules being angry at Roman for things he couldn't change but they get a sweet HEA. The bookstore battle, with the help of the ancestral grimoire plot tie-in, ends in a way not easily predicted but, mostly, happily. All-in-all a cozy and sweet look-in at the newest romance in this little English town setting. show less

The Littlest Library by Poppy Alexander was exactly what I hoped for, a feel-good story about friendship, community, love and books.

After Jess loses both the beloved grandmother who raised her and her job in short succession she impulsively purchases a cottage in the tiny rural hamlet of Middlemass. Ivy Cottage is a little run down but Jess sees its potential despite the bats in the attic, the overgrown garden, and the empty, urine soaked red telephone box in the front garden. Hard works show more soon transforms the cottage, and with a nudge from the community, Jess, an unemployed librarian, gives the telephone box a new life as a free community library, stocked with her late grandmother’s books.

There are no real surprises as to what happens next. The little red library is a hit, quickly attracting loyal patrons. Jess makes friends with an assorted array of slightly quirky characters like grocery store owner Paddy, lively seniors Diana and Mungo, harried mother of three Becky, and despite a rocky start with her gruff across-the-way neighbour, Aiden, a will-they/won’t-they romance blossoms. Alexander builds a delightful community you would want to be part of in an English country dream setting.

Of course there is some drama stirred up by a petty parish council member, a sudden illness, a strained marriage, and an intrusive ex-wife, but you can take comfort in knowing that these complications will be resolved. The predictability of a happy and hopeful ending is a balm when everything outside the books pages these days feels so chaotic.

A heartwarming and blithesome read, The Littlest Library is big on charm. show less