The lost for words bookshop

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. She works in a bookshop that doubles as her hiding place, and she wears the opening lines of her favourite novels as tattoos on her skin. There are parts of her life she will never show anyone.

Her quiet routine is broken when a poet and a lover enter the shop. Three suspicious deliveries follow. Someone has found out about her mysterious past, and the secrets she has guarded begin to press in on her.

This is a contemporary novel centred on one guarded woman and the books she uses as armour. A love of reading runs through it, from the tattooed quotations to the shop itself, and the setting is a bookstore rather than a wide stage. The tone is emotional, with a mystery about what Loveday is hiding driving the story forward.

The question hanging over the book is whether Loveday can live through her own painful secrets now that someone knows them. Readers who like bookshop settings and a character with a hidden history will find both here.