I read this one as a mother daughter book club.  It’s got a cute premise.  Maggie is taking over her friends bookshop while she’s on maternity leave.  It works out great because Maggie can’t keep a regular job, she’s been trying to find her place in the world for so long that even her parents don’t believe in her.

The only problem?  The bookshop is co-owned by an old white man obsessed with his family’s legacy and is selling the story that his ancestor Mr. Bell is this feminist icon.  So the bookstore isn’t allowed to carry anything newer than old moldy man’s books.  So, basically the bookshop is a shrine to old dead white men.

Maggie knows the shop is struggling so she starts carrying a secret stash of modern books which the locals all want.  The only problem is that the co owner has a super hot guy on payroll who is spying on Maggie and reporting back.  

Romance and misunderstanding ensue.

The story was okay, there were parts of it that bugged me, like at no point did Maggie consider that she would be an IDEAL event planner and there’s a market for that.  And I felt like her lying to her friend was really unnecessary.  

What I did like was the whole activities to do/books to read that Maggie and Malcom exchanged as they danced around each other.  It was a very cute idea.

It wrapped up a little too neatly, if white supremacists obsessed with family legacy were REALLY that easy to convince to give up their problematic idols, we’d be in a lot better shape.  But, it’s a cute romance, so I can let it go.