My latest review is a good one – Stephanie Butland’s Lost for Words.

THIS BOOKSHOP KEEPS MANY SECRETS . . .

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never show you.

Into her refuge – the York book emporium where she works – come a poet, a lover, a friend, and three mysterious deliveries, each of which stirs unsettling memories.

Everything is about to change for Loveday. Someone knows about her past and she can’t hide any longer. She must decide who around her she can trust. Can she find the courage to right a heartbreaking wrong? And will she ever find the words to tell her own story?

It’s time to turn the pages of her past . . .

So Lost for Words is a novel that has been sat on my Kindle for some time now, I just never seemed to get round to reading it.  When I finally did pick it up, I had completely forgotten what it was about, except that it has a picture of a bookshop on the front cover and that can only ever be a good thing!  I also have a habit of not re-reading the blurb of a book, so when I have a book for a while it’s always a surprise when I finally read it!

Lost for Words was definitely a surprise! I expected a lighthearted, easy-read romance and that is not what I got at all – please note however that this was not a bad thing.

Loveday Cardew is not your typical novel heroine.  She is a complex character who has had a very difficult upbringing, something that continues to impact on her adult life.  She helps run a lovely secondhand bookstore in York, owned by her close and dear friend Archie, the closest man she has to a father figure in her life.  For a number of years she has existed quietly, sorting and selling secondhand books by day and spending time in her small flat by night.  She is not surrounded by friends and family, and those who do know her, know very little about her.  A series of events, including Nathan unexpectedly walking into her life, cause Loveday to question everything she knows, and to start to actually explore the events of her past.

Loveday, Archie and Nathan are all fascinating characters, and I really enjoyed getting to know them all.  They each have their own secrets, all of which were appropriate for the story.  I enjoyed learning about each of them, and I most definitely have a soft spot for Archie – what a character!

As already mentioned, this is not a romance novel – not in the typical sense anyway.  This is more a story of self-discovery; the story of a young woman finally learning to own her past rather than run from it.  It’s a story of love and friendship, and how our friendships often save us, even when we didn’t realise we needed saving.

So, despite not being the novel I was expecting, I am more than happy to recommend it to you all.  It was a beautiful story, full of love, loss, friendship and discovery.  I hope you all go and grab and copy!

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📖

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.