I like stories set in bookstores and libraries, so I was eager to try Madeline Martin’s The Booklover’s Library. According to the blurb, it’s the story of a mother and daughter who are torn apart by war, but brought together by, among other things, a shared love of books. Sounded like my catnip, so I plunged right in.

Emma Taylor, a young widow with a daughter to raise, is desperate for a job. She’s pawned the last of the first editions she inherited when her father’s bookstore burned down and he died shortly afterwards. Emma is warming herself in the café next to Boots Booklovers Library when she overhears that a position among the staff has opened up, so she quickly applies for the job. She wiggles her wedding ring off as she does so, because single mothers are too much of a liability for employers, but her basic honesty makes her admit the truth. Thankfully she gets the job, on the condition that no one knows she has a daughter, and one problem seems to be solved.

Another one is just beginning, though. When, in 1940, the war in Europe comes home with the Blitz, Olivia has to be sent away to the countryside. Missing her desperately, Emma confides in her landlady, who teaches her to knit so she can make a sweater for Olivia, and Emma befriends a coworker at the library as well. She and the coworker collect scrap metal as part of the war effort, and Emma starts to discover what a support a found family can be. But Olivia’s intense homesickness makes her run away in a desperate attempt to come back home, and Emma tries to interest her in books, partly so they’ll have something in common and partly to give Olivia an escape from reality.

If this seems like a lot of different issues in the same story, that’s exactly what reading this book felt like. There’s also the coworker’s engagement to a soldier who goes MIA, someone trying to sabotage Emma’s job, her cantankerous neighbor, the handsome patron of the library who’s not in uniform, the in-laws Olivia doesn’t get along with, the boy who bullies Olivia, and probably a few I’ve forgotten. It was a lot to keep track of at the same time.

The setting of war-time Nottingham feels very realistic and the resolution of the bully plotline is heartwarming, because Olivia is a chip off the old block as far as kindness is concerned. But at the same time, the story is very episodic, and I didn’t feel there was enough focus on certain subplots – there couldn’t be, because there just isn’t enough space to develop everything. I don’t even remember anything about the handsome patron except that there’s a good reason he hasn’t enlisted, but there’s not much substance to his romance with Emma. They’re both good people who get along very well with each other, rather than people with flaws that will complicate a relationship.

That said, I did enjoy the subplot of Olivia’s transformation into a book lover. At first she has no interest in reading and would rather listen to the wireless, with her schoolwork suffering as a result. So Emma starts reading aloud to her from Anne of Green Gables, and by the fourth chapter Olivia is hooked. chapter Olivia is hooked. The world of literature opens up to her, and I loved how Olivia asks for the definitions of words while pronouncing them as they look in print, so Olivia pronounces “epoch” as “ee-potch”. More of this would have been awesome, but unfortunately the poor girl is More of this would have been awesome, but unfortunately poor Olivia is also shortchanged by the numerous events and people crowding their way into the story.

In summary, if you’d like a slice-of-life book set in Nottingham during the Blitz, The Booklover’s Library is a fine way to pass some time. Despite its flaws, it’s a quick, easy and at times heartwarming read, so it gets a recommendation.