general

• quick summary - ww1 veteran will darling inherits his uncle's bookstore and unwittingly becomes entangled in a web of espionage, danger, and romance with the unreliable and enigmatic kim secretan.
• key themes - trust and betrayal, post-war, class, authenticity, intrigue.
• fav character - kim, what a little bitch he is + phoebe is the best girl in the world and needs to get with maisie asap.

interests

• what i found interesting - the action scenes were extremely well-written, particularly the scenes after the kidnapping. I felt so anxious and just wanted to know what would happen. kim's character is probably one of my favorites this year so far; he is such a shit, but you can't help but wanting to know and understand him. when will figured out the flower thing I laughed out loud. some people mentioned the betrayals felt repetitive, but to me it was just extremely funny how will kept on being played over and over again. maybe I love a little toxicity in my romances.
• fav quote - "why do we count the cost of change, but not the cost of the world staying the same?" + "his eyes were very dark in the dim light (...) it was hard to identify that look. it held something of the expression you saw in church sometimes, when people were lost in the invisible, and the pain in their minds was edged with hope" it sounds a little bit beautiful.

books it reminded me of

• lucky lovers of london series - I feel like I always compare historical romances to these series, but in this case it was kind of similar given the bookshop situation. the writing was not so different either, but charles's book leans a little bit more serious and the characters are a little bit more complex.

rating

• 3.75/5 - I read this book in three days, and for half of it I was annoyed with it to the point that I thought I would not give it more than 3 stars. we were trusted right into the plot in the first few pages, kim came out of nowhere, and will trusted him out of nowhere too, and he figured out his second betrayal so unbelievably easily that I was more annoyed at that than with kim. the plot around the 'information' seemed a little bit too crazy too, and parts of it leaned too much anti-red imo. the characters were not so fleshed out, and they seemed to just have one trait: one stubbornness, the other one untrustworthiness. also, I was not too fond of the fundamental lack of descriptions; if I am reading an historical novel, I want you to make me feel immersed in the 1920s. however, once the 50% mark hit I was suddenly enjoying it very much. kim's backstory got more and more intriguing, and although I felt annoyed with him, I love his dynamic with the practical, reliable, feet-on-the-ground type of person that will is. the romance part is not really super present, but it is obvious why. phoebe and maisie are also both such interesting side-characters and I cannot wait to learn more about them in the following book. as I mentioned before, the action scenes were perfectly written and I felt such excitement about how the business would end (it did not disappoint). definitely reading the next one right away, and curious to know about how the romance will progress.