How to Find Love in a Bookshop

Narrator Fiona Hardingham's engaging voice is a perfect fit for this warm audiobook featuring a delightful bookshop called Nightingale Books in a bucolic English village. Emilia Nightingale inherits the shop from her generous and loving father. In spite of multiple frustrations, she attempts to continue the tradition of providing his beloved customers with a book for every need. As patrons and employees of the bookshop are layered into the story, Hardingham makes each voice distinct and expertly alters her pace and tone to match the emotion of every scene, whether humorous or sad. The Peasebrook community offers Emilia support and comfort as she grieves the loss of her father and as she becomes overwhelmed by managing the shop. A delightful feel-good listen. L.M.A. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

January 1, 2018

Emilia Nightingale returns from Hong Kong to her childhood home in Peasebrook in the middle of the English Cotswolds when she inherits Nightingale Books after her father's death. Taking over the establishment means that her inheritance comes to include the villagers as well, for instance, a kleptomaniac new mother, a trying-not-to-be-a-deadbeat dad, an accomplished chef, a renowned conductor and his temperamental girlfriend, and even her father's married lover. The elder Nightingale's antiquated business practices have just about wrung the coffers dry, but clever, caring Emilia just might maneuver a few happy beginnings. Fiona Hardingham makes for an ideal narrator for Emilia with her youthful-yet-world-weary presentation; she effortlessly shifts her voice sharply for city-transplant thief Bea, crisply for elegantly aging lover Sarah, and menacingly for greedy developer Ian, using her chameleonic modulations to excellent effect for a sprawling cast of characters. VERDICT Bookshop-book fans who flocked to Jenny Colgan's The Bookshop on the Corner, Katarina Bivald's The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, and Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry will want to add Love to their audio shelves. ["There are...serious depths within Henry's latest as characters navigate relationships, heartaches, and grief": LJ 8/17 review of the Pamela Dorman: Viking hc.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

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