The Last Bookshop in London

by Madeline Martin

  She smiled through her tears, opened her book and began to read, bringing them all along with her to a world where there were no bombs. There might be loss, and sometimes there may be fear, but there was also courage to face such challenges.

  For in a world such as theirs, with people of spirit and love, and with so many different tales of strength and victory to inspire, there would always be hope.

  EPILOGUE

  JUNE 1945

  Farringdon Station was filled with soldiers and civilians, the latter of whom had arrived in their best clothes, which wasn’t saying much with the ration of clothing that had been going on for several years. Grace was no different as she waited in a blue dress with a dusting of small white flowers along a hem that had begun to fade.

  She didn’t often leave the bookshop, especially not when it had become so busy. While “The Last Bookshop in London” had great sentiment behind it, she had officially renamed the shop to Evans & Bennett, now painted on a robin’s egg blue sign which hung over the doorway. The store had maintained a strong following through the war, with most she considered more friend than patron. Today, however, was worth having Jimmy mind the shop in her absence.

  He’d become a talented assistant, eager to help and almost as voracious a reader as Grace. It wasn’t uncommon for him to slip off between the shelves to lose himself into a story. The act reminded her so much of Mr. Evans that she couldn’t bring herself to reprimand him.

  Grace checked her watch, the luminescent paint flecks on the small ticking hands, once so integral to her former position as an ARP warden, were a greenish white in the daylight. At night, however, it had served her well through many air raids.

  Five minutes until three.

  That fateful night when Primrose Hill Books had fallen and Evans & Bennett rose from her ashes was the last of the Blitz on London. Bombings still had happened from time to time through the next four years until finally just last month on May 8, 1945, when the war came to an end.

  The celebration had been tremendous. Couples danced in the streets, people pushed up their trousers and held up skirts to splash through fountains, grocers spilled open their reserves of sugar and bacon, neighbors came together to enjoy a feast they hadn’t seen in years and the anti-aircraft spotlights, which once hunted their enemy in the skies, now swirled over the clouds in victory.

  Grace and Mrs. Weatherford took Jimmy and Sarah to Whitehall amid a press of eager crowds to witness Churchill’s speech touting their success in defeating Germany. The king and queen appeared on the balcony, resplendent and regal to show their appreciation for the people and their pride for such triumph. The princess wore her ATS uniform, which had made Grace cheer all the louder, if such a thing were possible.

  Britain had taken it and come out a hero.

  At the tube station, Grace checked her watch again. As three o’clock ticked closer, the group on the station platform increased in number until the air practically hummed with anticipation.

  Soldiers were coming home now with frequency, those who had been conscripted among the first to arrive, nearly all of whom were women. Without the war on, their efforts, which had been required to win, were no longer required. This was not met with enthusiasm by all, especially those like Viv, who had poured everything they had into their jobs.

  She had been part of the first mixed battery of men and women manning the anti-aircraft guns, stationed in London these last four years in the East End where she was billeted with several other women in her unit.

  At least until she’d been given notice that her service was unnecessary. The telegraph from Viv had been brief, stating only the time of her arrival at Farringdon Station and asking Grace to meet her.

  Viv would be coming home.

  The telegraph was all Grace needed to know Viv was not happy with her abrupt departure from the ATS. They had seen one another on many occasions with Viv’s day passes, but never once had she asked Grace to meet her.

  Finally, the train pulled to the platform and the doors hissed open, spilling forth a good many soldiers into the waiting arms of their loved ones. Viv was easy to spot in the mass of uniforms. But then, she’d always stood out with her red hair and bright smile. Some things never changed, not even after six years of war.

  Grace called to her friend who rushed toward her, embracing as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.

  “Are you all right?” Grace asked.

  Viv took a deep breath and nodded, her red lips drawing tight against one another. Despite her attempt to remain optimistic, disappointment lined the corners of her mouth.

  All around them, people jostled, lost in the bliss of their reunion or rushing to get home.

  “I really did a great job out there,” Viv said.

  Grace squeezed her with one last hug. “You really did.”

  “We both did.” Viv slung her kit bag over her shoulder and took Grace’s hand in hers. “Do you miss your work with the ARP?”

  “I miss the excitement of it,” Grace replied. And she did. Of course, it was preferable to be in a time of peace. But there had been a thrill that hung in the air in the past years, an appreciation every morning you woke up alive. The kind that came from a perpetual press of danger. She hadn’t been aware of it then, but now she felt of its absence.

  “Mr. Stokes comes to the shop so often, I haven’t had the chance to miss him,” Grace said with an endearing smile. “However, I am grateful for extra nights of sleep.”

  “We’ll have new adventures anyway,” Viv said, falling back on her old habit of looking for new horizons when she was downtrodden. And right now her attention was fixed on a soldier striding past them with broad shoulders and an array of pins sparkling on his chest. “With handsome husbands, perhaps?”

  “And shops to run.” Grace squeezed her hand, earning a laugh from her friend.

  “How is your wonderful bookshop?”

  Grace’s thoughts turned to the store, polished and clean, organized by subject, its shelves still mismatched wood from when they’d been rebuilt with scraps, the readings she’d continued as the war raged on and all the people she considered close friends. The booksellers she’d helped after the Blitz destroyed their establishments had found their own shops in time, each with a shelf designated for The Last Bookshop in London out of appreciation.

  She loved every bit of Evans & Bennett.

  “Like that then?” Viv asked with a smile. “Enough to transform your entire face with happiness?”

  Grace nudged her toward the escalators. “Like that.”

  As they rode up the metal stairs, it was all too easy to recall another time when she and Viv were at Farringdon Station together. When they’d left their home in Drayton, before the war had begun and they’d never dreamed they’d be surrounded by bombs or manning an anti-aircraft gun. Before Grace had ever found a love for books.

  It was surreal to think such a bland, colorless life had been lived by either of them.

  Grace had reached out to her uncle Horace in the days following the war’s end, to confirm their safety and offer her love. Once upon a time, she might have felt doing so was turning the other cheek. Now she knew it to be compassion.

  And he had replied, his manner still gruff, as he assured her that they were well and offering an invitation for her to visit should she fancy a jaunt in the country. In truth, it was more than she’d ever expected from him.

  She owed the fragile repair of that relationship to Mr. Evans. Well, that and so, so much more.

  Grace and Viv chatted on their way toward Mrs. Weatherford’s townhouse, where Viv was staying in the room she and Grace had once shared. Grace now lived in the flat above Evans and Bennett, which was far too small to accommodate two beds comfortably. As they neared Britton Street, Viv clasped Grace’s hand and her smile resumed its sparkle.

  They rounded the corner and both
broke into a run, like children, rushing up the steps to the green door with the brass knocker. Viv pushed inside and was met with a cheer of excitement from Mrs. Weatherford and Sarah, who made quite the welcoming committee with streamers of painted newspaper and a cake Mrs. Weatherford had been setting aside sugar and flour to make.

  * * *

  In the weeks that followed, Grace and Viv picked up where their friendship had left off, filling their newfound free time without the ATS and ARP with cinemas and cafés and nights out at the theater and, of course, jazz clubs and dancing.

  Through it all, there was the bookshop for Grace. As children returned from the country and soldiers from war, the familiar faces who had become friends now began to show up with their loved ones. She met husbands and wives and children.

  Jimmy enjoyed reading aloud as well and took it upon himself to do a children’s book hour every Saturday afternoon. On one particular afternoon, Mrs. Kittering arrived with her daughter, a pretty brown-haired girl with proper manners and wide doe eyes like her mother. Never had Grace seen Mrs. Kittering smile as much as she did with her daughter, doting on her every move and word with the eternal love of a mother. And eagerly awaiting her husband, who would undoubtedly be released from his service soon.

  It was on one such afternoon on a sunny Saturday in August that Grace found herself with a moment’s respite. With the customers all occupied, she made her way to the sunlit window with a copy of Forever Amber, leaned against the wall and opened the book.

  The familiar scent of paper and ink drew her in as she fell head over heels into a new story. She was so lost in the literary world being spun within her mind, she missed the bell chime at the front door.

  “I never thought reading could be more beautiful,” a familiar, rich voice said. “Until this moment.”

  Grace’s head snapped up and the book fell from her hands. “George.”

  He stood several paces away from her, handsome as ever in his neatly pressed RAF uniform, holding a head of purple cabbage. “It appears cabbages are still all the rage in place of flowers.”

  “Only because you’re not the Ritz.” She ran to him and threw herself into his arms as the cabbage head tumbled to the floor with a soft thump.

  They’d grown far closer in the years of war, with letters unveiling deep parts of their souls and all the time they could squeeze in together on the rare moments of leave he was afforded.

  “Are you home for good now?” she asked, gazing into his eyes, never able to get enough of him. She enfolded a hand into the warmth of his in an attempt to convince herself he was real. Truly standing before her.

  “I am.” He stroked a finger down her cheek. “For good.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest, breathing in his clean, wonderful smell and savoring the rasp of his wool uniform against her cheek that had grown so familiar.

  “Do you really not plan to ask if I brought you anything at all?” His voice rumbled under her cheek.

  She looked up in surprise. “I couldn’t possibly think of anything more that I’d want.”

  “Couldn’t you?” He grinned and reached into the pocket of his jacket. “Not even a book?” His hand hovered, his brows lifted with expectation.

  She straightened and clapped in delight. It had become tradition, after all, for them to exchange books with one another. His often were battered, well-read copies that had been shared between countless soldiers, but the stories within were always captivating.

  “I couldn’t possibly return to you empty handed.” He withdrew a rectangular green book.

  It was an oddly shaped thing, scarcely bigger than her hand.

  “They’re made in America, specifically for soldiers to carry about in their uniform pockets,” he said, answering her question before she could even ask it. “It’s quite brilliant, actually.”

  “It is.” She turned it over in her hand to study it before reading the bold yellow title aloud. “The Great Gatsby?” In the far left corner was a black circle declaring the book to be an Armed Services Edition.

  “All the Americans are raving about it.”

  “You haven’t read it?” she asked in surprise.

  “I’m rather keen on the idea of having it read to me from the infamous shop owner of Evans and Bennett.” He put his large, warm hand over hers, so they held the book together.

  “I’m sure I can arrange that.” Grace’s smile grew even wider. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you.”

  He lifted a brow, making him look as dashing as Cary Grant. “What would you have to thank me for?”

  “For teaching me how to love books.” She regarded the bookshop with fondness.

  He furrowed his brows with a genuine expression. “You did that, Grace. Not me. That passion was something you found inside of you.”

  Her chest swelled with his words. Deep down, she knew part of her newfound passion had started with him, with that old battered copy of The Count of Monte Cristo he’d given her. Part of it had been Mr. Evans and everything the bookshop stood for. Still another part was the people she read to, the dark times those stories had guided them through with distraction and love and laughter. It was even the war itself, the desperation to have a means to escape, a longing to feel something other than loss and fear.

  It was everything and everyone coming together as a community, drawn by the power of literature, that truly made her love of books complete and what put the heart into Evans and Bennett—or as some of her long-time patrons still referred to it, The Last Bookshop in London.

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing a WWII historical fiction novel has always been a dream of mine. Thank you to my editor, Peter Joseph, his editorial assistant, Grace Towery, and my agent, Laura Bradford, for helping make that come true.

  Thank you to Eliza Knight for her constant support. This has been such an amazing experience for us to go through in our careers together. Thank you to Tracy Emro and her mother for always helping keep me in line. Thank you to Mariellena Brown and my wonderful mother, Janet Kazmirski, for taking the time to beta read for me.

  And an enormous thank you to my family: John Somar for being by my side through all of this, always willing to step up and help with the kids so I can make deadlines. To my sweet daughters, who are my biggest fans and are so excited to finally get to read one of my books. To my parents for always being so proud of me. I have so much love in my life and am so grateful to each one of you.

  And a heartfelt thank you to all the readers out there who make dreams come true with each book they hold in their hands.

  ISBN-13: 9780369701084

  The Last Bookshop in London

  Copyright © 2021 by Madeline Martin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  Hanover Square Press

  22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor

  Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada

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