The Bookshop of Yesterdays

A woman inherits a beloved bookstore and sets forth on a journey of self-discovery in this poignant debut about family, forgiveness and a love of reading.

Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric Uncle Billy's bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda's twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda's life. She doesn't hear from him again until sixteen years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy--and one final scavenger hunt.

When Miranda returns home to Los Angeles and to Prospero Books--now as its owner--she finds clues that Billy has hidden for her inside novels on the store's shelves, in locked drawers of his apartment upstairs, in the name of the store itself. Miranda becomes determined to save Prospero Books and to solve Billy's last scavenger hunt. She soon finds herself drawn into a journey where she meets people from Billy's past, people whose stories reveal a history that Miranda's mother has kept hidden--and the terrible secret that tore her family apart.

I love books about books and bookshops which was what initially drew me to this novel.  While it does involve inheriting a bookshop, I have to say that most of the book does not center around books or the shop.  The main focus is on Miranda discovering what happened to Billy and why he left her the bookshop.  It was full of things I didn't see coming and I loved that about it.  However, it dragged in a lot of places that never really pushed the story forward.  I found myself often just wanting to hurry up and get to the end because I was just a little tired of Miranda hitting dead end after dead end. Overall, I the book was just okay for me.  

     
         * I received this book from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review *