The Vintage Bookshop of Memories by budding author Elizabeth Holland, is an enchanting romantic novel, that is the perfect antidote for these austere times that we currently all find ourselves in.  

The biggest compliment to give The Vintage Bookshop of Memories, is that this is a better read than J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.  This is high praise indeed when you consider J.K’s status in the writing world. Some will argue the latter novel deals with much darker themes, e.g. rape, drug taking and bullying.  However, the similar idyllic village settings, class conflict, and communities at war, are what make this an inescapable comparison.

The main character in The Vintage Bookshop of Memories, is likeable twenty-something year-old Prue Clemonte. We first find Prue at her grandmother’s funeral.  Prue inherits most of the property in Ivy Hatch, but she quickly learns that the sitting tenants despised her late landowning grandmother.

Prue is not welcomed in the village by the locals and so her refuge is an old shut-down bookshop that her late mother has left her.  It is Prue’s wish to restore this shop to its former glory, to honour her mother’s name.

Encased inside The Vintage Bookshop of Memories, is a whole host of Ivy Hatch secrets that become unearthed as the narrative develops. Can Prue’s relationship with fellow outsider Elliott Harrington, survive in this village where everybody knows one another’s business?

This book is not as dark as The Casual Vacancy, but neither by the same token is it as flimsy as say a Mills and Boon.  The narrative has a nice, stimulating pace to it.  It is funny in places, romantic, dramatic, and yet also intensely moving.

This is the second book I have now read of Elizabeth Holland’s, the first being the much darker, The Balance Between Life and Death. In both, I must congratulate Elizabeth’s easy reading style prose.  This coupled with her short chapters, make her books an absolute reading delight (with great content of course).

    Given the great quality of this novel, then it is quite staggering to discover that this is a self-published title. The more this author writes, then I can only see her work improving further still. 

 Remember and marvel at the name Elizabeth Holland. This is because big things are coming for her, this was a pleasure to read! 4.5/5.