Charlie Lovett

Can you discover more than one treasure at the same time? Charlie Lovett's wonderful 2017 novel “The Lost Book of the Grail” answers, why not?

If you have read much Anthony Trollope, you have probably heard of the fictional English town of Barchester. Lovett takes us there again in the company of Arthur Prescott, named after King Arthur and obsessed with Holy Grail legends since his childhood. Now he works happily with ancient manuscripts in the Barchester Cathedral Library. Suddenly show more those manuscripts are threatened.

Bethany Davis, a young American, comes to Barchester to digitalize these manuscripts. In his mind, Arthur views this project as making them expendable. His suspicions gain validity when Bethany's employer, an American billionaire, makes an offer to buy the manuscripts, and the cathedral hierarchy, desperate for money, takes the offer seriously.

Bethany turns out to be a Grail enthusiast, too, and together, along with a couple of friends, they begin a quest not for the Grail itself but for a book about the Grail and an almost mythical early saint. When they find it at last, it turns out to be more than Arthur could have hoped for. And the other treasure? Why, it's Bethany's heart, to Arthur an even greater prize.

Lovett first won acclaim for his novel “The Bookman's Tale,” but I found this an even more rewarding tale. And his scholarship is as impressive as his writing. show less

First Impressions, Charlie Lovett’s follow-up to his very successful debut novel The Bookman’s Tale, shares many similarities with its predecessor, the most obvious, of course, being its “bookish” theme. Once again, Lovett’s main characters are book people who are happiest when they are surrounded by books, their own or those they can find anywhere else. This type of book has developed into a recognizable sub-genre in recent years, one that has great appeal to the most avid of show more readers amongst us.

For the most part, First Impressions delivers the goods. Despite being a little predictable because of a plot that readers of this genre have already become all too familiar with, that of a lost manuscript that could change the way the world looks upon a major literary figure from the past (in this case, Jane Austen), the novel gets off to a strong start. The set-up works beautifully, in fact, as we meet Sophie Collingwood, a young woman who has just taken a job in a London antiquarian book shop. Sophie loves her new job, particularly working the shop’s “want list” for customers hoping she can find the books they have been unable to locate on their own. And it turns out to be this same “want list” that will pull her into a mystery that could end up wrecking the reputation of her favorite author, Jane Austen.

As the mystery deepens, Lovett alternates chapters from Sophie’s present day point-of-view with chapters set in 1796 and recounted through Jane Austen’s eyes. Tension builds as the two story lines begin to converge, Sophie starts to unravel the mystery, and Jane Austen delights in a new relationship with a man four times her age. This man, Richard Mansfield, as it turns out, is the author of a book (A Little Book of Allegories) that has the potential to ruin Jane’s literary reputation more than 200 years after its publication.

Unfortunately, all of that well-constructed tension is squandered by the book’s rather farcical climax, a climax during which the novel’s characters morph into caricatures right out of a pre-talkie cliffhanger from some 1920s movie theater. The action grows so ridiculous at one point that the reader almost expects to find the heroine being tied to railroad tracks while her tormentor gloatingly twists his mustache as a speeding train comes barreling toward them. This jarring change of tone lessens the impact of the other eighty percent of the book, and that is unfortunate because, until that point, First Impressions was good fun. show less

One of the better bibliomystery-type books I've read in a while, since Lovett at least mostly gets the details right when it comes to books and manuscripts and libraries (though having the main character be quite so much a lump got to me a bit).

I love Jane Austen's novels although I wouldn't call myself a diehard fan, and I do occasionally read one of the books that have proliferated like mushrooms since the BBC and Colin Firth propelled her back into the limelight in 1995. After finishing Charlie Lovett's book, I loved it. I loved Sophie's relationship with her Uncle Bertram and their mutual passion for books. I loved learning about rare books and printers and old documents long forgotten in library archives. I got caught up in show more Sophie's quest to find out if Jane Austen was a plagiarist. It was only after those first impressions faded that I really began to mull over what I'd read, and that's when my opinion began to change slightly.

Lovett's tale is told in alternating chapters, Sophie's in the present day and Jane's between the years 1796 and 1817. Due to the 200-year differences in the spoken language there is never any difficulty in knowing if you're reading about Sophie or Jane. First Impressions is alive while Sophie's uncle lives. Every bit of Lovett's passion for books glows on the page, and I read that section with a big smile on my face.

Jane's chapters are strong throughout. The author uses quite a bit from the historical record that anyone even vaguely familiar with Austen will recognize. I enjoyed the friendship between Austen and the elderly clergyman Richard Mansfield-- a kindred spirit who (for the purposes of this book) was Jane's sounding board when she was uncertain about her writing.

Although in my mind the outcome was never in doubt, I also enjoyed reading Sophie's quest to prove that Jane Austen was not a plagiarist. The problem I found that I did have was with Sophie herself. After Uncle Bertram's death (which happens very early in the book), Sophie soon has two handsome men after her, and her chapters begin to dip too far into chick lit for my taste. It was obvious to me which man she should fall for, so the similarities with Stephanie Plum's inability to choose between Moretti and Ranger were unwelcome. There was also the matter of Sophie's ethics. She has a sense of entitlement that does her no credit, and the first time she steals something, I was flabbergasted.

Fortunately Sophie isn't the only character in the book. Her sister Victoria, her Uncle Bertram, Jane and Richard Mansfield-- thankfully they all outweighed my opinion of Sophie, and they along with an intriguing story line are the reasons why I still found a great deal of enjoyment in reading this book. One questionable apple doesn't always spoil the barrel. show less