The Bookshop on Primrose Hill

By Sarah Jio

What it’s about?

Valentina Baker was only eleven years old when her mother, Eloise, suddenly fled to London, leaving Val and her father on their own in California. Now a librarian in her thirties, Val is fresh out of a failed marriage and utterly disenchanted with life.

One day, Val receives word that Eloise has died, leaving Val the deed to both her mother’s Primrose Hill apartment and the bookshop she opened twenty years ago. As Val jets across the Atlantic, she wonders – could this be her chance at a new beginning?

In London, Val finds herself falling in love with the pastel-coloured flat and the cosy, treasure-filled bookshop. When she stumbles across a series of intriguing notes left in a beloved old novel, it’s the start of a scavenger hunt that will take her all over London and back in time… but most of all, bring her closer to the mother she lost twice.

What I think:

This is sweet and frothy and perfect for suspending your disbelief and enjoying a cosy couple of hours.

To start with the positives – the characters are really engaging and both Eloise and Valentina’s stories weave in and out well.

Valentina has always felt that she was abandoned by her mother, who returned to England, leaving her in America and never seeing her again. When she inherits the bookshop she has a chance to reconnect with her mother and catch a glimpse into the life that she made for herself. She also has the opportunity to understand why her mother left.

Eloise’s story is about a love lost and the choices people make. She heads to America to marry someone that she really doesn’t know, and while the promise of financial security and a sense of adventure are exciting, Eloise is extremely naive. Isolated and bored, her life in California is not what she thought it would be.

For me, the negatives were the Americanisms. I think this edition was written for an American audience as the grammar and some of the words and phrawes were really out of place for a book full of British characters. Never once in my life have I heard anyone call aubergines eggplants. We don’t really have closets and certainly don’t have tea kettles.

This book seems miles away from the reality of living in London, and feels more like a Londonish version of the Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow.

This is sweet, easy read and the cover is gorgeous.

Thank you to Netgalley for my gifted digital copy. It was perfect rainy afternoon reading.