The Booklovers' Library by Madeline Martin

 

The Booklovers' Library by Madeline Martin is a book that is right up my alley.  I have said this before but I love books that have elements of truth that make me want to delve deeper into the subject. In this case, I wanted to learn more about the lending libraries during World War II that this book centers around.  I had no idea these existed and in this story, they were part of Boots' pharmacies in England.  I even managed to find a picture online: 

Apparently, these were a huge deal and had members of high society as patrons.  They were treated to exceptional, professional service at all times. In this story, Emma has experienced some tragedy in her life and is raising her daughter, Olivia, alone. Even though she is widowed, she is technically not allowed to work, since she is a mother. This was true back then! However, Miss Bainbridge decides to make an exception and allows Emma to be the newest employee of the library. 

Emma quickly becomes efficient in her job and finds she really enjoys it. Furthermore, a load is off her shoulders now, as she was in need of money. Emma not only works in the library but also volunteers where she can helping those affected by the war, working alongside her friends. I feel that is the story of how community comes together during a catastrophic time in our history. Here is an excerpt featuring the very first part of the story and Emma's beginning: 

PROLOGUE

Nottingham, England April 1931

JUST ONE MORE CHAPTER. Emma lingered in the storage area on the second floor of her father’s bookshop, Tower Bookshop, with Jane Austen’s Emma cradled in her lap. Sadly, not her namesake—her parents had named her Emmaline for an aunt she’d never met, who had died on Emma’s seventh birthday ten years ago.

Still, the book was one of Emma’s favorites.

“Emma.” Papa’s voice rose from somewhere in the bookshop, sharp with irritation.

She frowned. Papa was seldom ever cross with her.

Perhaps the smoke from the man who had come in with his cigar earlier still lingered in the shop.

She settled a scrap of paper into the spine of her book.

“Emmaline!” Something to that second cry snapped her to attention, a raw, frantic pitch.

Papa was never panicked.

She leaped up from the seat with such haste, the book dropped to the ground with a whump.

“I’m in the warehouse,” she called out, racing to the door.

The handle was scalding hot. She yelped and drew back. That’s when she saw the smoke, wisps seeping beneath the door, glowing in the stream of sunlight. 

Fire.

She put her skirt over her hand and twisted the knob to open the door. Thick plumes of smoke billowed in, black and choking.

She sucked in a breath of surprise, unintentionally inhaling a lungful of burning air. A cough racked her and she stumbled back, her mind reeling as her feet pulled her from the threat.

But to where? This was the only exit from the storeroom, save the second-floor window.

“Papa,” she shouted, terror creeping into her voice.

All at once, he was there, wrapping a blanket around them, the one she kept in the shop for cold mornings before the furnace managed to heat the old building.

“Stay at my side.” Papa’s voice was gravelly beneath the blanket where he’d covered the lower part of his face. Even as he led her away, a great cough shuddered through his lean frame.

Beyond the wall of smoke was a vision straight out of Milton’s Paradise Lost as fire licked and climbed its way up the towering stacks of books, devouring a lifetime of careful curation. Emma screamed, the sound muted by the blanket.

But Papa’s hand was firm at her back, pressing her forward. “We have to run.” Not slowing, he guided her to the winding metal staircase. She used to love clattering down it as a girl, hearing the metal ringing around her.

“It’s hot,” Papa cautioned. “Don’t touch it.”

Emma hugged against his side as they squeezed down the narrow steps that barely fit the two of them together. It swayed beneath their weight, no longer sturdy as it had once been. The blazing heat felt as though it was blistering Emma’s skin. Too hot. Too close. Too much.

And they were plunging deeper into the fiery depths.

The soles of Emma’s shoes stuck to the last two steps as rubber melted against metal.

What had once been rows of bookshelves was now a maze of flames. Even Papa hesitated before the seemingly impassable blaze.

But there was nowhere else to go.

The fire was alive. Cracking and popping and hissing and roaring, roaring, roaring so loud, it seemed like an actual beast.

“Go,” he shouted, and his grip tightened around her, pulling her forward.

Together they ran, between columns of fire that had once been shelves of books. An ear-shattering crack came from above, spurring them to the front as fire and sparks poured down behind them.

Emma ran faster than she ever had before, faster than she knew herself capable. Papa’s arm at her side yanked her this way or that, navigating through the fiery chaos. Until there was nowhere to go.

Papa roared louder than the fire beast and released her, running toward the blazing door. It flew open at the impact, revealing clean sunny daylight outside. He turned toward her even as she rushed after him and grabbed her around the shoulders, hauling her into the street.

Emma gulped in the clean air, reveling in the cool dampness washing into her tortured lungs. A crowd had gathered, staring up at the Tower Bookshop. Some came to Emma and Papa, asking in a frenzy of voices if they were hurt.

In the distance came the scream of emergency sirens. Sirens Emma had heard her entire life, but had never once needed herself.

There was need now. She held on to Papa’s hand and looked behind her at the building that had been in her family for two generations and was meant to become hers someday. Her gaze skimmed over the bookshop to the top two floors where their home had once been.

The fire beast gave a great heaving howl and the top floor crumpled.

Someone grabbed her from behind, dragging her back as the rest of the structure came down, ripping her hand from her father’s. She didn’t reach for him again, unable to move, unable to think, her eyes fixed on the building as it crashed in on itself in a fiery heap. Their livelihood. Their home.

All the pictures of her mother who had died after Emma was born, all the books she and her father had lovingly selected from bookshops around England on the trips they’d taken together, everything they’d ever owned.

Gone.

Emma choked on a sob at the realization.

Everything was gone.

“We need a doctor.” A man’s voice broke through her horror, pulling her attention to her father.

He lay on the ground, motionless. Soot streaked his handsome slender face, and his thick gray hair that had once been the same shade of chestnut as hers was now singed in blackened tufts.

“Papa?” She sagged to the ground beside him.

His eyes lifted to her, watery blue and filled with a love that made her heart swell. The breath wheezed from his chest like a kettle’s cry. “You’re safe.”

Once the words left his mouth, his body relaxed, going slack.

“Papa?” Emma cried.

This time his eyes did not meet hers. They looked through her. Sightless and empty.

She shuddered at how unnatural he appeared. Like her father, and yet not like her father.

“Papa?”

The wailing sirens were still too far-off.

“I’m a doctor.” A man knelt on the other side of her father. His fingers went to Papa’s blackened neck and the man’s sad brown eyes turned up to her.

“I’m sorry, love. He’s gone.”

Emma stared at the man, refusing to believe her ears even as she saw the truth.

It had always just been Emma and her father, the two of them against the world, as Papa used to say. They read the same books to discuss together, they worked every day at the bookshop together, friends and colleagues as much as they were father and daughter. Once Emma had completed her schooling, she’d even traveled with him, curating books like the first editions they were still waiting on to arrive from Newcastle.

Now that beautiful light that shone in his eyes had dulled. Lifeless.

It was no longer Papa and her against the world.

He was gone.

Their shop was gone.

Their home was gone.

Everything she knew and loved was gone.

Excerpted from THE BOOKLOVER’S LIBRARY by Madeline Martin, Copyright © 2024 by Madeline Martin. Published by arrangement with HTP Books, a Division of HarperCollins.

If this sounds like it interests you, here are some links to purchase: 

Buy Links:

HarperCollins:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-booklovers-library-madeline-martin?variant=41311560695842 

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1335000399  

Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-booklovers-library-madeline-martin/1143849745  

BookShop.org:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-booklover-s-library-original-madeline-martin/20392302 

And here is author Madeline Martin's social media info: 

 

Social Links:

Author Website: https://madelinemartin.com/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MadelineMartinAuthor 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MadelineMMartin 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madelinemmartin/ 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12062937.Madeline_Martin 

My two cents: I enjoyed these characters immensely. I was invested in what happened to Emma and her friends and interested in learning more about the real libraries at that time. The author does a fantastic job bringing these characters to life and making them seem real, a trait I love in any book.  I appreciate the copy from the publisher via NetGalley. 

The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull

 

 

I had the opportunity to get a copy of The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull. First, can we all just take a minute and admire that gorgeous cover??  

The story is about Lise and Uli who are planning a happy life, starting with their engagement. Lise lives in East Berlin with her father and brother, but studies medicine in West Berlin where Uli lives. Lise goes home after the romantic evening when Uli proposes dreaming of what's to come, including a dinner later in the week with her family and Uli, announcing their happy news.

But, just days later, the Berlin Wall goes up, dividing the East and West.  Uli and Lise are separated with no way to get to one another.  What follows is a heartbreaking, breathless account of their story. 

Here's a better description:

Berlin 1961: When Uli Neumann proposes to Lise Bauer, she has every reason to accept. He offers her love, respect, and a life beyond the strict bounds of the East German society in which she was raised — which she longs to leave more than anything. But only two short days after their engagement, Lise and Uli are torn violently apart when barbed wire is rolled across Berlin, splitting the city into two hostile halves: capitalist West Berlin, an island of western influence isolated far beyond the iron curtain; and the socialist East, a country determined to control its citizens by any means necessary. 

I'm leaving part of it out because there's something in the description that gives something away that you should read on your own!  However, I am pleased to be able to share an excerpt from the publisher. Take a look, you'll be invested immediately: 

 

13 AUGUST, 1961

 

Uli stared out his apartment window, his pulse beating wildly in his ears. Seven stories below, a tangle of concertina wire ran the length of Bernauer Strasse, bisecting East Berlin from West: onlookers on both sides of the wire watched, muttering, as green-uniformed Grenztruppen, separated from the East German citizenry by a line of Volkspolizei, jackhammered the cobbles to fix stakes into the ground and carted in more spools of barbed wire, rolling it out with gloved hands.

Was it war? He studied the faces of the border guards, searching for an indication of panic, of fear, but they looked measured and resolute. Was it a planned operation, then? A provocation?

He needed to find Lise. He pulled on a shirt and trousers and descended into the fray.

Outside, the sound of jackhammers was a relentless snarl that drowned out the fury of Berliners on both sides of the wire, shouting their ire. In the East, a mishmash of soldiers—police officers and border guards and members of the People’s National Army—stood with their backs to the west, shoulder to shoulder, as guards hammered stakes in place.

“Uli!”

He wrenched his attention away from the barbed wire to see Jurgen’s stocky, sandy-haired figure. “Have you spoken to Lise?”

Uli shook his head: across the street, a scrum of people had formed around a nearby telephone box. “I only just came outside. I’m still trying to piece together… What’s going on?”

“Ulbricht’s sealed the border.”

“Sealed it?”

“Yeah.” Jurgen bit his lip, and Uli knew that he was thinking of his family, his brother and sister-in-law and niece, living in Bernau. “People kept saying he was going to do something, but I never thought…” He trailed off. “You’ve not seen Lise?”

“Not since Friday.” Uli searched for a higher vantage point— a bench, the bonnet of a car—and gestured for Jurgen to follow him toward a rusting Mercedes, parked on the opposite side of the road. “Have you spoken to your brother?”

“I tried telephoning Karl, but they’ve cut the wires. I heard they’ve sealed off the U-Bahn and S-Bahn as well… I don’t think anyone can make contact.”

Uli jumped onto the bonnet of the Mercedes. What purpose did it serve to cut the telephone lines? He gave Jurgen his hand and tugged him up on top of the car: from here, they could see past the guards and jackhammers to the bewildered East Berliners beyond.

“Lise was out of town, wasn’t she?” Jurgen muttered. In the empty streets beyond Bernauer Strasse, Soviet tanks rolled in and out of view in the direction of Brandenburg Gate: Where was the answering military presence from the West? He turned, hoping to see British or American troops: on a far-off corner, a pair of French soldiers watched the growing crowd but made no attempt to move closer. Surely, they had to intervene?

Uli turned back to the barbed wire and his heart lurched: there, coming down Brunnenstrasse, was Lise. He shouted her name and waved to catch her attention: she turned and lifted her arm in response.

Uli leaped down from the car and made his way toward the wire. He muscled past men and women with Jurgen in his wake, rising onto his toes to keep Lise in his sights.

A shout rang up behind him—“Fascists!”—and the crowd surged forward. He stumbled, and a West Berlin police officer caught him before he hit the ground.

“Watch yourself.”

Uli straightened. “My fiancée. She’s in the East,” he began, hearing in his voice the panic he was trying, and falling, to quell. On the opposite side of the wire, Lise was pushing forward too, her pale head visible as she tried to reason with a Grenztruppe. “I need to speak with her, if you could just let me through, she’s right there—”

The officer’s expression was pitying and fearful in equal measure. “I have my orders. No one is to approach the barrier,” he said. Across the wire, a second Grenztruppe turned his head, listening to their conversation over his shoulder. “They’re operating within East Berlin, we have no jurisdiction to intervene—”

“They’re tearing the city apart!” Uli shouted, his rational mind reeling against the sheer absurdity of what was in front of him. He took another step, searching for a break in the wire. “If I could just talk to her—”

The officer’s grip on Uli’s arms was mercilessly hard. “If you want to start the next world war, keep going,” he hissed, before shoving Uli back. “There’s nothing I can do, mate. Take it up with Walter Ulbricht.”

He stumbled into Jurgen, trembling with a rage he’d never felt: an impotence, a helplessness that he’d not experienced since he was a boy.

“Easy…this might only be temporary,” Jurgen said, his hand steady on Uli’s shoulder. “We ought to go to Brandenburg Gate. We might learn more about what this is—there will be reporters, politicians—”

On the other side of the wire, he watched as Lise’s own attempts to reason with a border guard failed: she stepped back, looking distraught. “If Ulbricht really is sealing the border, we need to act now. We need to find a way to get to Lise—bring her across—”

“I know.”

Uli broke off midsentence, wrenching his eyes away from Lise. Jurgen stared at him, resolute, and his steadiness gave ground to Uli’s panic, helped him think beyond his own fear, his own anger.

“We need to act now, but whatever we do, it can’t be here,” Jurgen continued. He was right: they couldn’t push through, not here, where there were so many people, so many sets of eyes. “We find a break in the wire—a gap…” “They can’t be everywhere all at once,” Uli said. “Further along,” Jurgen whispered back, and Uli’s heart quickened. Across the wire, Lise stared at him, and he jerked his head, knowing that Lise would understand—she nodded, and melted back into the crowd.

“C’mon,” he muttered, and he and Jurgen took off down the street.

 

Excerpt from The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull. Copyright © 2024 by Bryn Turnbull. Published by MIRA.

If you are intrigued here are some links to purchase and the author's social media links: 

Buy Links:

Harlequin

Bookshop.org

Barnes & Noble

Books A Million

Amazon

Social Links:

Author Website

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brynturnbullwrites/?hl=en

X: https://x.com/brynturnbull

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brynturnbullwrites/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19389611.Bryn_Turnbull

I absolutely LOVED this book. It's been a long time since I have wanted to keep getting back to what I was reading and I couldn't wait to get back to Lise, Uli and the rest to find out what was going to happen. I also want to add that what happened was NOT what I thought was going to happen at all. Ms. Turnbull is a new to me author, and this may be my first read by her but it won't be my last! Thank you to the publisher for the copy.