Madeline Martin brings us to England for her latest look at bibliophiles facing war with The Booklover’s Library. A story about the love, growth and the joy of second chances, this novel is sure to delight the author’s many fans.

Our story begins with a fire. Emma is reading upstairs when her father’s bookshop, located directly below their flat, is engulfed in flames. Both Emma and her dad escape the building, but he dies of smoke inhalation immediately afterward. A short time later, seventeen-year-old Emma marries a man from the solicitor’s office who handled her father’s affairs. Fast forward a decade, and she is a widow in Nottingham, England, in desperate need of a job. The little money left behind by both her father and her late husband has been stretched to the breaking point, and if she doesn’t find a source of income soon, she and her daughter Olivia will be forced to live on the streets. Or worse, be forced to live with her in-laws on their farm.

There are legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, but she happens to be passing Boots’ Booklover’s Library when a young woman gives notice. Emma quickly approaches the proprietress, Miss Bainbridge, to ask for the position. The two agree to give it a trial run.

Emma’s life blossoms unexpectedly with this simple change. Not only do her financial problems lessen, but when her landlady, Mrs. Pickering, notices eight-year-old Olivia fending for herself, she invites the girl into her home. This results in the two adult women forging a strong friendship, a friendship which they will definitely need as Britain plunges into the dark days of war. When Olivia is sent to the countryside as an evacuee, it is the companionship of Mrs. Pickering, her co-worker Margaret, and handsome library patron Charles that helps Emma cope with her loneliness and have hope for the future.

Current World War Two-set women’s fiction novels seem to follow a pattern. Step one is to remind everyone that this is a period where women first joined the workforce in a significant way and to explore how pivotal that was for many of these ladies. Step two is to remind everyone that it takes a village. A lot of times, the heroines are isolated by circumstances, but getting a job subsequently means developing new, meaningful relationships. This book hits both those major notes, showing us how Emma’s life improves all around because of her placement at Boots.

These books also give authors an opportunity to showcase their research skills. In this volume, Ms. Martin emphasizes how the laws governing the work of married women and widows were unjust and forced desperate ladies into difficult situations. Emma is fortunate that, as people discover her circumstances, they are more sympathetic than judgmental, but it is clear how precarious her position is. It’s nice to be reminded every once in a while that the freedoms we take as a given these days were not always available, and just how valuable they actually are.

The author also does a decent job of capturing the horror of the bombings, the pulling together of the British people as they faced a grim war, and the problematic choices families faced as they worried about how best to deal with caring for children in a time of terror.

That latter gave me some pause since Olivia struggles with being in the country, and Emma struggles with having her gone. The story details the challenging situation some children found themselves in after leaving and how staying with family might have spared them from abuse. Perhaps I mistook the text, but the message I received was that Emma was a better mother for (after giving being apart a try) keeping her daughter with her. I can’t speak to what the right decision would have been for all families in clearly difficult circumstances, but the narrative in no way convinced me that being with Emma was good for Olivia. When Emma first goes to work, she doesn’t lay out a plan for Olivia’s care, not even telling the girl where to go for help or listing what to do in a crisis. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Pickering’s timely intervention, that eight-year-old would have been entirely on her own. Throughout the tale, Emma is utterly passive in the management of Olivia, simply waiting for others to intervene. The magic of storytelling ensures it always happens, but I couldn’t help but feel that she should have been a bit more proactive.

My other quibble with the story is that the romance between Charles and Emma isn’t very well developed. Part of the problem is undoubtedly that the story is a hybrid – women’s/historical fiction with a bit of romance thrown in. While I understand that the emphasis is on Emma’s journey, since the love story is part of the plot, I would have preferred it to be a bit stronger and more detailed. Emma is defined as a book lover and mother; Charles is a book lover, feminist, heroic, and caring. Emma is often called kind by her coworkers and the patrons at the library, and Charles is considered handsome and sweet. So they are both nice, but that doesn’t really explain what it was about Emma that her made him want to ask her out. Nor does it tell me what about him made her want to see him in spite of having a fairly busy and full life. I simply didn’t get what drew them to each other, nor why Emma’s first marriage hadn’t been a happy one. It’s intimated that she was grieving and only comes out of it when she goes to work, but that explanation isn’t really explored and fell short for me.

If you like the standard home front WWII stories that populate women’s fiction, I think you will thoroughly enjoy The Booklover’s Library despite its minor flaws. It contains the typical uplifting message of survival, camaraderie, and feminine independence that are the hallmarks of the genre and that give the kind of emotional boost we could all use during these stressful times.