Blog Tour: The Bookseller's Secret

The Bookseller's Secret, Michelle Gable's latest novel, immediately intrigued me. A writer who's lost her mojo? London in present day and during World War II? A missing manuscript? A bookshop? Oh, yes. I was intrigued. The novel didn't quite live up to what I was expecting but it was interesting and entertaining enough to keep me turning the pages until the end when I finally learned the bookseller's secret.

Here's the book's description:

In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she’s given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics.
Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop’s brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy’s life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay.
Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present…

I have to admit I didn't know who Nancy Mitford was before I read the description of this book and that small tidbit was all I knew when I dove into Gable's novel. I think that might have been a detriment to my reading enjoyment and I can't quite put my finger on why. Perhaps because I didn't know a thing so I didn't know how many liberties the author was taking (I don't mind a few but I know that real people are really hard to write about in historical fiction so I tend to shy away from those types of novels) nor did I have any details or info that I feel like the author might have assumed the reader would have. She does a good job of explaining who Nancy was and all her various family members but the "why I should care"-ness just wasn't there. It wasn't even until partway through the book that I realized Mitford is the author if The Pursuit of Love, which has recently been released on Prime and is on my watchlist! She was an interesting woman, to be sure, but I think some of the context was a bit lost.

There's a dual timeline in this novel, like many other historical fiction titles these days. It functions just about as you'd expect but with one notable exception: the "present day" very clearly references the pandemic on multiple occasions. You know, the one that is currently still much a thing? It was a thing of the past in the "present" timeline and, I gotta say, it really weirded me out. It was the first time I encountered it in fiction and I honestly wasn't expecting to for another year at least. I laughed when, in about the middle of the book, Nancy and her friends were discussing a new novel (Grand Canyon) and Nancy says, "We're a stitch too in-the-middle-of-things to comfortably picture a world in which Germany has defeated us." Was this Gables making reference to the fact that she's referencing something we're still going through or did she not even realize the parallels? The parallels are there, of course, and it is something I've noticed myself when I've been reading war fiction over the last however long this madness has been going on. I just didn't expect it to be in my hands for another long while.

I liked that Nancy seemed to buck all traditions and she wasn't what I would normally expect from a woman in the 1940s (which, I think, is a bit sexist and backwards thinking of me) and I really liked reading as she went about her business of having affairs and hosting blackout salons in the bookshop. She was wicked smart but not always the kindest person. I don't know if she was intentionally cruel or just too focused on herself that she never really thought about the feelings of others. Definitely an intriguing woman!

Katie, on the other hand, was going through a hellish time and I felt like that made for a more flat character. She was like a shell of herself which makes it hard to want to read about her - if that makes any sort of sense. I didn't dislike her by any means but I didn't necessarily feel engaged when reading her story. I did really love that she's an author, as is her best friend, as it's always fun to read about writers and readers. I also appreciated that her storyline was able to satisfy the wanderlust I've been feeling as she wandered around London.

The Bookseller's Secret wasn't, really, much of a secret but I enjoyed Michelle Gable's novel well enough. I think it was a case of the story and characters not being for me, not necessarily the way she wrote them. I'm definitely going to make sure to check out more of her work.

About the Author
MICHELLE GABLE is the New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment, I'll See You in Paris, The Book of Summer, and The Summer I Met Jack. She attended The College of William & Mary, where she majored in accounting, and spent twenty years working in finance before becoming a full-time writer. She grew up in San Diego and lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, with her husband and two daughters. Find her at michellegable.com or on Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest, @MGableWriter.

Connect with the Author
Website * Twitter * Instagram

Buy The Bookseller's Secret
Bookshop.org * Barnes & Noble * Google Books 
Amazon * Kobo * Apple Books

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Graydon House, in exchange for a review for the purpose of a blog tour. All opinions are honest and my own.*