The Bookseller's Secret
A Novel of Nancy Mitford and WWII
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3.7 • 70 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“The Bookseller's Secret is a delight from start to finish, a literary feast any booklover will savor!” —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye
ARISTOCRAT, AUTHOR, BOOKSELLER, SPY—A THRILLING NOVEL ABOUT REAL-LIFE LITERARY ICON NANCY MITFORD FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A PARIS APARTMENT
In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she’s given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics.
Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop’s brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy’s life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay.
Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present…
*Don't miss The Beautiful People, Michelle Gable’s next novel. On sale in April 2024 and available to preorder now!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gable (A Paris Apartment) immerses readers into parallel narratives of two authors revolving around a London bookshop. American novelist Katie Cabot's writing career seems to have stalled. Eager to get away from her overbearing family in present-day Northern Virginia and their advice about her recent breakup with her fianc , Armie, Katie travels to London to see a friend. There, Katie visits Heywood Hill Ltd., a decades-old bookstore where famed novelist Nancy Mitford worked during WWII, and meets Simon Bailey, an attractive teacher who is eager to find Nancy's missing unpublished memoir, which he learned about when reading letters from Nancy to his grandmother Lea, who lived at Rutland Gate, where Nancy's friend housed war refugees. As Katie helps Simon by searching for the missing manuscript at Heywood Hill, the attraction between the two builds, but is complicated by Armie's unexpected arrival in London. Gable's witty narrative effortlessly moves between two time periods and is enriched with cameos by historical figures and authentic, memorable characters. Historical fiction fans will be riveted from the first page.
