The wildest dreams bookshop by Gracie Page

Anyone looking for a book set in a picture-perfect seaside town with a wonderful bookshop and a budding romance is sure to enjoy The Wildest Dreams Bookshop. 17-year-old Anna has just finished her exams and is certain that she has failed them. To make matters worse, her boyfriend Max has dumped her, saying he wants to find himself on a trip to Paris. Her friends all have summer jobs so when her aunt invites her to help in her bookshop, she travels to Cornwall, not expecting to enjoy herself. But there is handsome Jacob, a local surfer and handyman, who she keeps seeing around. Then her aunt breaks her leg, and Anna is forced to take over the bookshop, trying desperately to save it from financial ruin.

I rushed through The Wildest Dreams Bookshop loving the characters and the setting. Anna’s growth from an unhappy young woman who wears London clothes and straightens her hair, to one who lets her hair go curly is engrossing. She uses all her skills and spreadsheets to help pull her aunt’s bookshop out of financial trouble, organising the shop and inviting a celebrity author to launch her new book there. She is ably assisted by Raye and Jacob, although labelled a bad boy, shows his true colours by helping to renovate and coming up with ideas when disaster strikes. Meanwhile she begins to appreciate the town and its inhabitants when they rally round to save the shop. 

Lovers of romance will enjoy the gradual development of feelings between Anna and Jacob. And of course anyone who loves books and bookshops will delight in The Wildest Dreams Bookshop and will be happy to while away a few hours escaping into its shelves and travelling around the beautiful Fox Bay.

Themes: Romance, Books and bookshops, Coming of age.

Pat Pledger