I was attracted to this book by the blurb and, ultimately, it didn’t disappoint. It did take me a while to get into, though. The first chapters introduced a lot of characters in a short period of time. I’m someone who has a hard time with names in real life so it’s better for my reading enjoyment to be introduced with a cast of characters in a more drawn out process. I had to keep going back a few pages to recall who was who.

Once everyone was established in my head, though, things got better and I enjoyed the story more.

The protagonist’s mother founded a book shop in a small English village when the protagonist was young. The bookstore with the flat on the second floor is the only home she’s known for her whole life. She didn’t have a father in her life as she grew up.

The heroine’s husband was raised by a wealthy family in London and he’s always been a disappointment to his father as he chose to marry the heroine and help run the bookshop and not run the family business.

The husband had a heart attack a few months prior to the events in the book and the heroine has been babying him and keeping secrets from him about the health of the revenues of the business. They have one child who is on her gap year.

They bought a copy of the book that covers the Christmas Day soccer game between the Allies and Germany in WWI when they were very newly married. It has never sold. Until the day a man comes in looking for that very volume for his grandson who has leukemia.

This action plants the idea for them to give away six books to people in their area. They ask on Twitter for people to nominate a deserving recipient.

They choose books and wrap them.

When the six people are chosen, the wife randomly addresses the books without knowing which will go to whom.

The reminder of the book is introducing us to the people chosen and the impact on their lives of the book they were randomly gifted as well as how the heroine and her husband deal with the pending sale and closure of the store since they owe massive taxes.

The one issue I had with the book was the secret keeping the wife did. The store got in deep financial trouble over a period of many months and she didn’t tell her husband. That bothered me. A lot.  They seemed to have this perfect marriage which I thought made it completely unforgivable that she would keep such a big secret. That they were going to lose their home and livelihood based on her failure to be a good steward to the business and lying about it. It was a massive problem for me. And he forgave her way too easily.

The story itself, other than the lying to the spouse, was lovely and shows the power of the written word. How it can make a difference in a life. It was a worthwhile story as well as entertaining. A warm, fuzzy, Christmas read with life lessons for all six recipients as well as the bookshop owners.

4 stars.