Stephanie Butland

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people, and her job in a York bookshop is her refuge. Into the bookshop come a poet, a lover, a friend and three mysterious deliveries....

Ailsa Rae is learning how to live. She’s only a few months past the heart transplant that - just in time - saved her life. Now, finally, she can be a normal 28-year-old. She can climb a mountain. Dance. Wait in line all day for tickets to Wimbledon....

Loveday Cardew's beloved Lost for Words bookshop, along with the rest of York, has fallen quiet. At the very time when people most need books to widen their horizons, or escape from their fears, or enhance their lives, the doors are closed. Then the first letter comes....

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never, ever show you....

September is at her wits' end. There's never enough money to support her boyfriend and herself. September has nothing to look forward to. Then the letter comes. September has inherited a house from a great-aunt she never knew she had.

It smelled bittersweetly of sourdough, and there was the trace of hot, fresh bread in the air. She took a deep breath and unlocked the door....

Ailsa Rae is learning how to live. She's only a few months past the heart transplant that - just in time - saved her life. Life should be a joyful adventure. But....

1968. Veronica Moon, a junior photographer for a local newspaper, is frustrated by her (male) colleagues' failure to take her seriously....

When the Lost for Words bookshop in York hosts an event for a new reading project, four strangers' lives will change in ways they could never have expected . . .

When her daughter was born with cystic fibrosis, Kate Micklethwaite vowed that Daisy would never be defined by the illness. Kate does all she can to be the perfect mother, yet, somehow, has started seeing herself the way others see her....

In Loveday Cardews geliebtem Antiquariat in York ist es still geworden und einsam – wie in ganz England während des Corona-Lockdowns. Und das, obwohl die Menschen doch gerade jetzt Bücher am dringendsten brauchen, um ihr Herz zu weiten und der räumlichen und geistigen Enge zu entfliehen....