Did you ever want a mashup of “You’ve Got Mail” bookshoop competition meets Romeo and Juliet? Then meet The Battle of the Bookshops. This mashup is perfect for fans of banter, book speak, and complex families. Keep reading this book review of The Battle of the Bookshops for my full thoughts.
Summary
The cute, seaside town of Portneath has been the home of Capelthorne’s Books for nearly a hundred years…
The shop, in the heart of a high street that stretches crookedly down the hill from the castle to the sea, may be a tad run-down these days, but to Jules Capelthorne, the wonky, dusty world of literary treasures is full of precious childhood memories. When her great-aunt Florence gets too frail to run it alone, Jules ditches her junior publishing job in London and comes home to make the bookshop’s hundredth birthday a celebration to remember.
Jules quickly discovers things are worse than she ever imagined: The bookshop is close to bankruptcy, unlikely to make it to its own centenary celebration, and the lease on the building is up for renewal. With a six-figure sum needed, the future looks bleak.
To make matters worse, the owner of the property is the insufferable Roman Montbeau, from the posh, local family who owns half of Portneath. The Montbeaus and Capelthornes have feuded for years, and Roman has clearly not improved since he tormented Jules as a child. Fresh from a high-flying career in New York, he is on a mission to shake things up, and—unforgivably—proves his point about Capelthorne’s being a relic of the past by opening a new bookshop directly opposite—a shiny, plate-glass-windowed emporium of books.
Jules may not be able to splash the cash on promotions and marketing like the Montbeaus, but she’s got some ideas of her own, plus she has a tenacity that may just win the hardest of hearts and the most hopeless of conflicts.
Let the battle of the bookshops commence…
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Rival bookstores meets Romeo and Juliet. The Battle of the Bookshops made me almost rage quit with my feelings against our Montbeau’s. While the story shows both Roman and Jules’s perspectives, it’s definitely more on Jules’s side. This fuels the fire against Roman and without an outlet, it feels a bit frustrating with the arrogance and feud. I know that it’s often that we see a rivalry one sided, but these little snippets of Roman became infuriating because I either wanted enough to redeem or none at all. As someone who used to work in publishing, my favorite elements of The Battle of the Bookshops were the little nods to actually running the bookshops. The difficulties, stock issues, and events.
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But the actual romance seemed so unlikely to me. The amount of anger, the history of the feud, and then the sudden turn around just felt unbelievable to me. I know that’s something I never really got about Romeo and Juliet but in this contemporary setting I understand it even less so. In some ways I felt like the connection to the original made some of the elements seem unrealistic when in reality it should have deviated a bit more. This was a quick read, and I did like some of the side characters, but it was this weird mashup of retelling that felt a bit like it just took the things I didn’t quite understand and emphasized them here. Find The Battle of the Bookshops on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop. org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.