The Door That Opens When You Tell Your Story

The door to The Lost Bookshop does not appear for everyone. If you are one of the lucky ones, it does and your life may change for the better.

That's the premise of Evie Woods' The Lost Bookshop, a novel that combines my favorite reads: historical fiction and books-about-books.

The story unfolds across the early 1900s, post to mid-century Ireland, and the present day. The lives of Opaline and Martha are bound by mystery, love of literature, a lost Brontë manuscript, and the ways stories can connect us across time. Many additional lively, poignant, and troublesome characters present themselves as friend and foe.

Along the way, there are references to works of Joyce, Hemingway, Emily Brontë, and D.H. Lawrence.

In one thread, Opaline, a gifted book dealer, is betrayed by her brother and loses years of her life, yet becomes renowned in her field. In another, the discovery of an elusive bookshop and a possible long-lost manuscript sets modern-day characters, Martha and Henry, on a journey that informs what they believe about the past and themselves.

The backdrop of women's place in their own time and the struggle for autonomy drives Opaline's story. Magical realism and a search for self-discovery drives Martha's current-day story. 

Within both of their stories there are doors that lead them out of places where they feel smothered and invite them to new rooms filled with imagination and connection.

When you write your own book about your story, your history, your legacy, you are building a door that others can walk through long after you're gone.

That's what legacy writing is: opening a door to who you are, what you've lived, and what you've learned so that future generations can step inside.

The beauty of The Lost Bookshop is that it reminds us that books aren't just objects. They're safehouses. Time machines. And sometimes, rescue missions.

If you've been waiting for the "right moment" to start writing your story, step onto the doorstep before you and open the door.

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Words We Keep: Stories Give Us a Voice