【 THE LITTLE FRENCH BOOKSHOP 】

This is a beautiful book written by someone who so clearly loves the messiness of being human.

Genre: Fiction
Author: Cecile Pivot
Published: July 2022
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 240 pp (paperback)

This wasn’t at all what I expected, and it was so much better. It made me laugh and it made my cry. It’s not about a bookshop, but about a letter writing course.

I can’t recommend this enough.

It’s the correspondence of participants in Esther’s letter writing course to improve their writing skills. Everyone is facing their own battles, and everyone writes to two other people in the group.

The whole story is so touching a real – the way the author wove the stories together and made these characters real is unparalleled. I was impressed by how easy it was to follow all the stories between correspondences.

Absolutely brilliant and a must read.

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Title: The Little French Bookshop
Author: Cecile Pivot
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A letter writing workshop.
Five strangers.
Countless secrets bursting in between the pages.

When French bookseller Esther loses her father, she decides to place an ad in a newspaper, inviting struggling readers to join her secret letter writing workshop.

To Esther’s surprise, applications pile in by the dozens – and before long, an elderly lady, a disillusioned businessman, a disheartened couple and an awkward teenager find themselves sharing stories, seeking advice, and forging new friendships.

As Esther’s students uncover the hopes, dreams and fears that were hiding behind the pen, Esther, too, finds herself thrown into a new world full of unexpected adventures.