Book Review: Lost For Words.

There was no growing to like Loveday, the main character in Stephanie Butland’s novel, Lost For Words, it was an instant and lasting connection.

Maybe it was simply a shared love of books? Although I don’t think love is a strong enough word for what they mean to her. Maybe it was her comic timing. Her prickliness. Her literary tattoos. Her dislike of people who fold corners of books.

Whatever it was, I found myself heavily invested in her story from the first page.

Here’s the blurb:

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 . . .

There’s mystery, there’s love of all kinds, there’s death, poetry, books, of course, and a motley cast of characters who between them seem to inspire the gamut of human emotions.

If only everyone could have an Archie, the larger than life owner of the bookshop where Loveday works. The little stories of where he’d been and what he’d done had me laughing out loud.

Then there is Nathan. The poet/magician. I was rooting for him all along.

The calibre of the writing and the flow of the story made it very hard to put down. I read it at every opportunity. In fact, I thought, as I had 30 minutes before I had to pick Freya up from school, I could use the time to finish this story. What that meant was not only was I late, the door to her classroom already open and half the children on their way home, but I arrived with puffy eyes, having been almost sobbing for the last portion of the book (if anyone asked I would have blamed it on the cold weather).

It was all worth it because this book is special. It’s a quirky, colourful read that will stay with me for a long time.

Format: Kindle.

Price: £1.89 (bought with my Christmas voucher).

My rating: Five stars.