An Imagination’s Delight
The Midnight Bookshop by Amanda James is the most delightful novel that will fire up your imagination.
This is a tale about three people and their new-found love of reading. “It doesn’t matter how much you read… as long as you attempt it.” Books are the doorway to brave new worlds. They offer possibilities and show you a new way of living. The Midnight Bookshop “is built on the imagination, mystery and magic.” As the reader sinks between its’ pages, we ‘feel’ the power of the story.
The leading three characters are all floundering. Life has not been kind to any of them. They all face different challenges.
A twenty-one-year-old has everything that money can buy but money cannot buy love. “I didn’t want their money… I wanted their love.” Everyone desires to be loved.
In contrast an eighteen-year-old is living in poverty and declares, “I feel trapped.” Caught between an ailing mother and a drug dealing older brother, his life is going nowhere and he cannot see a way out.
And finally, we have a young woman who has been trapped in an abusive marriage for ten years. “He wanted her to feel unattractive, worthless… a woman with no confidence is easier to control.” Day upon day, her husband has put her down, either with his words or with his fists. “She felt she was a non-person.” She feels invisible.
A flyer for the Midnight Bookshop brings the three to its’ doors. Each one finally finds a place of refuge from the world. “It’s as if she’s come home. A sense of belonging.”
Books do not judge us. As the Midnight Bookshop opens its’ doors to the lost and the hurting, they find that they do not choose the books, the books choose them. Hurting, lonely lives begin to open up. There are new friendships and new possibilities ahead. “Hope is still with me, and right now it is stronger than fear.” Lives inter-twined support each other, helping to provide firm foundations as well as friendship.
The Midnight Bookshop is a positively delightful read. I never wanted it to end. It fired up imaginations as it gave the characters the courage to let go of their ‘little’ lives and to begin to really live.
The Midnight Bookshop was my first book by Amanda James and I want more, more, more!
I received a free copy. A favorable review was not required. All opinions are my own.
JULIA WILSON