I above loved Lost for Words and this return to the Lost for Words bookshop iby Stephanie Butland is a joy.

Her writing is utterly engaging and this book truly moved me. Compassionate, unusual, original and full of wonderful characters. Much recommended.

The Lost For Words bookshop offers a click and collect or postal service during Covid restrictions. When they realise that they are losing out on those customers who browse the shelves, not sure of exactly what they want in a book, they set up a book pharmacy. Email them outlining the type of book you want or the issue you are struggling with and they will curate a list of books for you.

When I started Found In A Bookshop I struggled. I didn't like the writing style and found it difficult to get my head around the constantly changing characters. However, I stuck with it and this book really grew on me. Some characters were fleeting but we regularly returned to the main ones.

Set during the first set of Covid restrictions during 2020 we are reminded of exactly how much life changed for everyone. Now that life is returning to normal we easily forget how normality simply stopped. I know that I personally view that time from my own perspective, what Found In A Bookshop does is show you how others were impacted. We meet restaurant managers, supermarket staff, domestic abuse survivors and the retired to name just a few. We are given a brief glimpse of their daily struggles, loneliness, anxiety or need to simply retreat from reality.

Through the book pharmacy we see that books are a form of medicine. They offer an escape, a glimpse into another life, greater understanding, comfort, nostalgia and hope. The communication between the staff of the bookshop and the customers also proves to be a vital lifeline for some. The most poignant being retired teachers Rosemary and George who have no family. Up until Covid they were content in their house by the sea, tending their garden and happy in each others company. Covid coincides with a major health issue and we learn how lonely existence became.

Thankfully some of the characters are revisited throughout the book and I really warmed to them, wanting to know what direction their life would take. Not everything has a happy ending, just like life, but we do see how much community, support and hope matter.

A delightful book, it centres around a book shop and the character/s that own, run and use it. It’s a beautiful story and you can’t help but care for each and every one of the characters! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Really loved this book, set during the early days of the Covid pandemic and lockdown, it is a story of the bookshop Lost for words. When the bookshop has to close the two women who run it, move to online and offering a book pharmacy when they realise how much people are struggling. People send emails describing how they are feeling and the booksellers make useful suggestions and either post of deliver the books by bicycle. A love letter to books, so many are mentioned and how they might help with various emotional states. It is also a lovely book about the importance of community, especially bookshops or libraries as a place that offers so much more than something to read, but wisdom and emotional support. Wonderful.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure I was ready, quite yet, to read a novel not just set, but very much about the pandemic. But I was wrong. #FoundInABookshop is a poignant, heartbreaking and incredibly moving novel that handles many sensitive subjects with care and tenderness.

Beautiful, heartwarming, a true gift of a book. Imagine a world with no books or an inability to read.

Found in a bookstore reminds us of those awful days and months during covid. The awful losses, loneliness, changes to our very existence. This book broke and put me back together many times and shows the power of books to heal and to aid survival and our very existence.

Wow!

What a read. This book made me cry more than once. It was so poignant, the characters so real and relatable.

This is the story of a bookshop in York during the first year of the pandemic. The bookshops owner and her staff decide to try and help people by prescribing books for different situations. The lists and descriptions of books have given me a lot of titles to add to my own reading list. The various characters we meet all have different needs and wants and it is lovely to follow the story lines of some of them. George and Rosemary have a particularly sad story that is dealt with so sympathetically that I felt that I really knew them. Loveday and Kelly were well drawn and the introduction of Madison as a troubled teenager gave an interesting dynamic.
I loved this book, it described perfectly how I felt at times during 2020 and I would recommend it to anyone who loves books and loves bookshops as much as I do.

I hadn’t realised this was a follow on book from this author & would love to read the first.
This can definitely be read as a stand-alone & I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The title & synopsis drew my attention to this book & piqued my interest.
The story is set during the first covid lockdown around a lovely little second hand bookshop in York.
It was a time when many of us lost ourselves in a book but covid took away the way we bought our books.
We were all desperate for new ones.
Loveday’s Lost For Words bookshop along with
every other business had their doors closed & were looking for other ways to trade.
Love day & her team want to help the community by recommending books to meet the individual.
They came up with the idea of a book pharmacy where people write in & say what there interests are & what book genres would suit them.
The team would then send prescriptions of lists of books they think would suit the individual.
I enjoyed all the book recommendations & even found a few I would like myself.
This a gentle captivating heartwarming read that draws you in as the story develops.

Any book that is about books will typically appeal to me, and from its description, I really liked the sound of this book and was very interested in reading it.

I think that as a reader, you sometimes have moments where you look at the first page of a book, and in that moment, you feel it is speaking to you. I experienced one of those moments when I began reading this. I identified so strongly with the values expressed, that it was almost like falling in love with a book.

All of the characters had qualities that I identified with and appreciated in one way or another, and I found them all very likeable.

This book spoke to me of a love for books and reading, and how important books are to those who read them. It also talks about the impact of the pandemic and loneliness, and I think that's something that many readers may be able to identify with. I was tearful in places, but at the same time, this book warmed my heart so much. It's the kind of book that can remind you why you love reading, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves books.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy to review.

I want to visit this bookshop! When the lockdown was keeping the customers away Loveday and Kelly.advertise the book pharmacy where people write about what they want books for and the girls send book prescriptions. So we get lots of other stories all interesting and all intertwining, but art the heart of it is the bookshop. Wonderful, was sad when it ended

This is a sequel to the authors earlier novel, Lost for Words, but it can be read without having read that book as the back story is filled in.
Loveday runs a bookshop in York. When the pandemic hits an everything is locked down, Loiveday, her assistant Kelly, partner Nathan and mother Sarah-jane are bereft by the loss if customers. A letter arrives asking if they can supply books to a couple who are shielding. This leads to the development of the book pharmacy, a service which offers books to readers who are bereft, grieving, frightened and bored as theblockdown continues.

The letters from customers offer an insight into all the feelings so many of us felt during the pandemic. It maybe too soon after the pandemic for some people to revisit this period but I enjoyed it. I loved the book recommendations and am sure will go and look for those I haven't read.

An engaging read with some great characters especially those we meet through their letters.

I recently read Found in a bookshop by Stephanie Butland. Although it became clear that the main character Loveday’s back story of inheriting a second-hand bookshop had been told in a previous book, it is covered skilfully enough so as not to interfere with a reader’s understanding or pleasure. Found in a bookshop follows on from Lost for words.
The story takes place during the first Covid lockdown. Its basic premise is that certain books are helpful at a specific, difficult time of a person’s life, and so Loveday copes with the sudden disappearance of customer footfall by giving literature ‘prescriptions’ – a short list of fiction titles which will help with loneliness, or bereavement, or whatever else her customers are contending with. It’s a clever plot structure. In this way Butlin introduces us to a cast of characters, each with a different issue in that time of life-shattering isolation, and this gives many sub-plots within the main story arc of ensuring the bookshop’s survival. These characters - including Loveday herself, her assistant Kelly and their teenage Saturday helper, Madison - are rounded enough for their roles; that is, they are sufficiently believable and engaging for the amount of space they take up, which is helped by the author’s switch into their point of view in chapters titled with their name. A particularly poignant example is the case of Zoe, at home with a newborn and a four-year-old, while her paramedic husband stays away from home to protect them. The details of her sharpened observations in pandemic lockdown – a discarded mask hanging in a tree like a fruit – took me back instantly to that strange time.

Another point of view is the author’s own; she comes in several times with a brief chapter containing her reflections on reading, and on the role of bookshops; for example:
“It’s sometimes straightforward to talk to a bookseller, to say, I want something light, or, I’m looking for a recommendation; and the bookseller will hear, beneath your words, I cannot bear how long the afternoons are, or, I don’t know what my life is about any more.”
These chapters are not titled; I appreciated their content but found the switch in style, from the contained point of view of an individual character to an omniscient authorial voice, was sometimes a bit of a jump.

Like the cherry on top of the cake, I’m saving my favourite bit till last. I especially loved the short lists of book recommendations, which are sprinkled through the book as prescriptions for each customer. They are a tempting mix - of books I know and books I don’t, of classics and contemporary fiction. It’s always a pleasure to be reminded of a book you loved, and their presence gives you confidence to try one of the others in the same company.

A good adjective for this book is ‘heart-warming’; the author deals with some very heavy topics – terminal cancer, Covid death – but doesn’t linger in the bleakness. It’s a well-written, cleverly constructed feel-good read. I enjoyed it, and I will buy some of the author’s recommended novels. Thank god for second hand bookshops!

I am grateful to NetGalley for sending me an e-copy of the book in return for a review.

I loved this book - I had met Loveday before - however this book could be read as a stand-alone.

It is the pandemic and Lost for Words is quiet - to save the bookshop the manager, Kelly, and Loveday start a book prescription service to help people through a crisis. They will customise books to meet people’s needs - loneliness, fear, escapism.

You meet a catalogue of characters all needing support in such exceptional times. I was particularly drawn to George and Rosemary who enjoy reading books to each other and revisit their joint past through their choices following George’s terminal diagnosis.

Books as a refuge and a source of mental health support are both vital in my mind - this book reinforces that view.

One to be recommended.

I loved this book!

Some people might struggle with this because it is set right in the middle of the covid lockdown at the height of the pandemic, and this is the focus of the story. It also covers other difficult subjects such as domestic violence and grief. However, it is very much at the heart of it an uplifting story. It’s about the bonds of friendship, the goodness in people and the wonder that is reading a good book.

I haven’t read the first book that this follows on from but I didn’t find this an issue. I very much enjoyed this and it made me nostalgic for my first job as a bookseller some 20 years ago.

I wish this Book had been available to read at the beginning of the Pandemic! Having four medical conditions which along with some of the medications I'm on have resulted in me having a very low immune system which has meant since the start of the Pandemic I have been classed as extremely vulnerable ( I've had all of my Covid Vaccinations & Boosters ) but 35 months on I'm still having to shield . My love of Reading is one of the positive things to keep me sane during all of this, it's enabled me to travel to the Future & the Past as well as be in the present ,I've read Fiction & Non Fiction , also Young Adult & even some children's Books, I've Laughed, Cried & been utterly amazed plus learnt lots of things too . If there had been such a thing as a Book Pharmacy I would have participated with it. I was able to empathise so well with Rosemary & George , but was also envious that they lived in Whitby one of mine & my husbands favourite Coastal Towns . I also understood the NHS side of things being a retired Nurse . I am going to recommend this book to several family members & friends too .#NetGalley, #Goodreads, #FB, #Instagram, #Betweenthecovers,#Amazon.co.uk, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/358a5cecda71b11036ec19d9f7bf5c96d13e2c55" width="80" height="80" alt="100 Book Reviews" title="100 Book Reviews"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>.

This is set during lockdown and explores the characters working in a bookshop and the customers that go there. It centres around an idea from the bookshop owner about socially prescribing books according to what people are looking for.

At first I wondered that there may have been too characters and that some of the customers featured have their life stories going backwards and forwards as well as their connections to the bookshop but it is explained really well. The book gets better as it goes on. A nice touch is a list of all the books which have been prescribed at the end. A real heartwarmer that makes you want to go out and read.

I so wanted to love this but with the storyline mostly being centred around covid and lockdown, it just all felt a bit too soon. If other more creative ways could have been used for the letters, I think it would have made for a more escapism read. Great premise, wrong timing.

I loved the premise for Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland. An idea borne from a customer’s letter to the Lost For Words bookshop, requesting books, Loveday and Kelly set up a book pharmacy. The idea is a success and they soon receive many letters from people requesting books to help them with the challenges they are facing during the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic. Kelly and Loveday use their knowledge and love of books to suggest novels that may help and comfort their customers.

Through these letters a community is formed, with the Lost For Words bookshop at its centre. They also give us a glimpse into all manner of lives, relationships and individuals. These vignettes truly capture the tone of 2020 with loneliness, fear and grief being juxtaposed with community, joy and love. The most prominent of these being the story of Rosemary and George’s enduring relationship, told through a series of flashbacks throughout the book.

On the whole I found this book to be an uplifting read but there were times I had to put it down and take a moment, thanks to a couple of heart-shattering moments. This mix of experiences is what made Found in a Bookshop such a compelling read for me. I also really enjoyed the use of letters within the narrative, finding that they pulled me into the individual stories and I was completely invested in even the most minor of characters.

I adored this novel but I cautiously recommend it, as I am aware that the Covid-19 pandemic is ongoing and a novel about it may be triggering for some people. Personally I found it quite a cathartic read and it helped me process some of my lingering emotions around my own lockdown experience.

Found in a Bookshop is the follow up to Lost for Words, but it can be read as a standalone novel as Butland subtly fills you in on Loveday’s history throughout the book. Lost for Words has made it to my TBR pile and I look forward to reading it.

Thank-you NetGalley and Headline books for approving my ARC request, it was an absolute pleasure to read.

A lovely story about the healing powers of the perfect book! Loveday and Kelly run a bookshop which is currently closed due to the pandemic. They decide to provide an online service where they offer books as a ‘prescription’ for some of their customer’s problems. I’m not sure I’m ready for a story with the pandemic as a backdrop, as there were some heartbreaking storylines. If this story has been set in any other time period, I think I would’ve given it 5 stars as it really was a beautifully written story. All in all, a great read!

Initially I wasn't sure whether the whole Covid experience was too recent and raw for me to be able to engage with this book. However, it was a really uplifting read - with some excellent book recommendations (a number of which have been duly noted!)