Book 10 of 52: The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

This was fun!

This being The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson, if you can’t tell but the headline and the photo (which was taken on the beach in Jekyll Island, Ga. which I miss very much already!)

This story is about Maggie Banks, who has floated through adulthood so far, not quite sure what she wants to do with her life. When her best friend asks her to help run her bookstore while on maternity leave, Banks jumps in her car and drives across the country to Bell River, a fictional Maryland town located somewhere around Washington, D.C.

But it’s not just any bookstore, and it’s not just any town: Bell River is devoted to author Edward Bell, whose first novel became an instant classic. The bookstore features Bell’s writing desk, and only sells books that were published before he died in 1968.

Banks thinks it’s weird, and she’s right. But this isn’t a creepy book. I’m not sure what we’re calling it these days. Back when I first started the blog, we’d have labeled it chick lit, but that’s a term I hear much anymore (and I wasn’t writing about books at the time conversations about that term were happening). It doesn’t quite feel like a romance novel, though there is a romance, and some book selling platforms label it a contemporary romance.

Whatever it is, I enjoyed it and ordered Banks’ first novel, Must Love Books, as soon as I finished this one.

Fun note: I picked up a copy in Kramers, a bookstore in Washington, D.C. (formerly known as Kramerbooks & Afterwords, yes I’m having a hard time getting used to it too). Kramers shows up in the novel. Fun!

Nail polish: You’re Scent-Sational by Essie.

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