The Holiday Bookshop

Lucy Dickens

From Shelf: Reading pile

Ever since they were little, Marianne and Jenny were a double act; the free spirit and the sensible one. Marianne dreamed up the plans and Jenny made them happen. Opening their bookshop and cafe in their hometown was Marianne's idea, but ensuring the business survived? That was all down to Jenny. The bookshop and cafe are thriving, and Jenny hasn't taken a break since they started.But Marianne has just dropped a bombshell; she's taking off for a couple of months to the USA, eloping with her most recent boyfriend, Drew, for a Vegas wedding and an extended honeymoon. Jenny is furious that Marianne didn't even discuss who would keep the bookshop running in the meantime. As usual, Marianne has just assumed that sensible Jenny will happily hold down the fort.Well, not this time. Jenny, fed up with being the sensible one, does something very un-Jenny-like and accepts a temporary bookseller role at a luxury resort in the Maldives. She agrees to let Evan (Marianne's handsome, kind and single older brother) run the bookshop while she is away.Throughout the weeks, Jenny learns to throw the rule book out of the bookshop window, and find her own sandy feet. She turns shelves of overly high-brow tomes into a vibrant mix of holiday reads, from local and international authors, and from literary to crime to bloody good bonkbusters. She swaps out events that call for guests to leave their loungers for dark corners of the hotel for bright, air-conditioned lounges with a view. She stops treating the guests like the wealthy A-list clientele they are, and starts to treat them like holidaymakers who just want to enjoy themselves.With love, fun and summer sunshine aplenty, spanning two time zones - from the open, airy, tropical Maldives to the stifling heat of anything-goes Las Vegas - THE HOLIDAY BOOKSHOP promises to get readers vacay-ready within pages.

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