The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin: book review

The Little Bookshop on the Seine (2015) is Book 1 of The Little Paris Collection.

Twenty-nine year old Sarah Smith owns a quiet, failing bookshop called ‘Bookshop on the Corner’ in the small American town of Ashford. She has no staff – it’s just a little rural bookshop. Her one-year relationship with Ridge Warner, a freelance international journalist, is full of positive communication, but he is always overseas on assignments.

Sarah’s French friend, Sophie, owns a successful, busy bookshop in Paris called ‘Once Upon a Time’ with oodles of staff, both permanent and casual. Her relationship has ended and she wants to get away for awhile.

Sophie suggests a six-month bookshop swap.

Almost immediately Sarah heads for Paris, for the first time. As she’s meeting the staff of Once Upon a Time – TJ, Beatrice, Oceane, and the rest – her suitcase and passport are stolen. Conflicts with the staff are her low points, and her high points are her interactions with reclusive successful writer Luiz Delacroix and the love letters they find in the bookshop.

Sarah has a difficult time transitioning from the simplicity of her own store to the frenetic pace of Sophie’s bookshop. But she finds joy in the hidden streets and lanes of Paris.

And then the sales in the Paris bookshop decline … and Ridge is sent on another assignment and can’t get to Paris for the romantic holiday they planned. Everything is falling into a hole.

This is a short, easy-to-read, light romance. Although somewhat predictable, it is, in its way, a little charming and an enchanting story for readers who love Paris, bookshops, and romance.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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