Kristy Cambron delivers an incredible dual-timeline novel of fortitude, sacrifice and redemption with “The British Booksellers.”
The story follows the lives of Lady Charlotte Terrington Holt and Amos Darby, a tenant farmer’s son, during both world wars — starting in 1913 and 1940. The tale of two friends who can barely even be friends due to their positions in life, Charlotte and Amos must overcome trials and hurts — personal and literal wars — to find healing, grace and forgiveness.
As Charlotte and her daughter Eden work in 1940 to protect their home on Holt Estate, as well as protecting their community in Coventry, they reconnect with Amos, as well as a strange American bringing a lawsuit to their door. As the German air raids come closer and closer, they must work together to protect their homes, each other and their lives.
Kristy Cambron does an incredible job of researching a very real and devastating event in England, all while spanning the bridge between two generations and creating great characters the reader can’t but help to root for. She brilliantly weaves together their stories and their connections over several decades.
She also offers a number of great themes, like books offer freedom and life (“Books are an escape that beckons the reader from the heavy burdens of this world. … They can challenge as well as comfort. Entertain and educate. Even save us in ways we’d never expect”); having a dream; forgiveness over retribution; the importance of caring for others; and to love through the good and the bad (“To love meant to accept all — the grit and grief alongside beauty. To endure the harshness of life not with despair, but hope”).
A huge theme of the book is dealing with scars — literal, physical, mental, emotional — and the impact they can have on us (“The scars we bear should make us more worthy of understanding, not less”).
Fans of historical fiction, stories centered around the two world wars, and authors like Rachel McMillan, Katherine Reay and Kate Morton will love “The British Booksellers.”
Five stars out of five.
Thomas Nelson provided this complimentary copy through NetGalley for my honest, unbiased review.