You know when Amazon says: we think you’d like this one! Well, sometimes I ignore and refrain and well, other times I press the button.
Evie Woods is an Irish writer of whom I had never heard but I think I was particularly vulnerable to anything with ‘bookshop’ in the title. This is full on magic realism. Think the writing of Elif Shafak, although maybe it’s not quite of that very high standard.
I have to say that for the first 40 pages I wasn’t convinced I was going to stick with the story but when on page 42 Sylvia Beach and the bookshop: Shakespeare and Co. entered, well then I was definitely hooked.
We have three stories, that of Henry, Opaline and Martha and they grow and intertwine like the roots and boughs of a tree. There is the lost bookshop of the title, a mysterious missing manuscript that may have been written by a Brontë and a tangle of emotions and personal relationships. The story is not only magical realism, it is also quite gritty as well. Martha suffers violent domestic abuse and Opaline, living in a parallel time line, is certified by a male relative and physically dumped into an Irish asylum. Each character finds themselves in some way through books and stories and there is a satisfying sign that shows some personal agency in the choices that are made.
This is quite a complicated story and I needed to concentrate to see how everything fitted together. I am however glad I read it.