Hope Between the Pages by Pepper Basham

Hope Between the Pages

I love books about bookshops and libraries! (No wonder there’s a trend. I’m even writing one myself!)

Let’s begin with the summary:

Uncover the story behind a one-hundred-year-old love letter.

Walk through doors to the past via a new series of historical stories of romance and adventure.

Clara Blackwell helps her mother manage a struggling one-hundred-year old family bookshop in Asheville, North Carolina, but the discovery of a forgotten letter opens a mystery of a long-lost romance and undiscovered inheritance which could save its future. Forced to step outside of her predictable world, Clara embarks on an adventure with only the name Oliver as a hint of the man’s identity in her great-great-grandmother’s letter. From the nearby grand estate of the Vanderbilts, to a hamlet in Derbyshire, England, Clara seeks to uncover truth about family and love that may lead to her own unexpected romance.

And now, my review:

Readers will relish this bookish story. We get to watch our heroine fight to retain her family’s bookshop. We also get to travel both in time and place. In the historical thread, we reside in the famous North Carolina mansion, the Biltmore, and work in its library. Yum! There’s even a pen pal element, which I adore in fiction.

Like bookshop-set novels, dual-time (split-time) novels are also a trend, and Pepper does a great job managing the story lines. We watch two romances develop, and we care about the main characters in each place. Their lives intersect across time. It was a little tricky to discern which timeline we were in without dates as headers, but the historical is written first-person, which solved that problem. Also, I read the ARC, and the headers may have been added later for clarity.

One of the themes is seeing others for who they are inside, and another theme is being seen. One of the characters is scarred but that doesn’t disqualify him from love and a full life. This aspect was meaningful to me, and I believe readers who may have worried about being disqualified for whatever reason will resonate with the truth, hope, and promise of unconditional love. In our superficial society, it’s a comfort to know unconditional love exists and the truly exceptional people will see past "flaws" to the hidden heart. God does. 

Another, related, theme was class distinctions, particularly in the historical story line. But in this thread, the roles of acceptance were reversed—a clever way to mirror a poignant theme of looking past the exteriors to the interior. Well done, Pepper!

Such an enjoyable story! Recommended! I'm already looking forward to book two in this new series.

Check this out! You can read a FREE e-book preview, available on Amazon.