by Michelle Gable

3 / 5 stars
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I quite enjoyed the premise of this book, and it’s the second one I’ve read lately featuring a woman reeling from a breakup who travels to London to re-examine her life (I have a type, ok?)

The switch from present day to the past happens very naturally, and you can follow the thread from one generation to the next. There’s a love story, a historical mystery, a missing manuscript, and a bookseller keeping a secret. And there are multiple booksellers in this book, so who has the secret? There’s a lot to love about this book.

The overall story is great, it’s intriguing, but I found the book to be “put downable.” That’s not to say I didn’t want to read it, but if I got interrupted and had to step away in the middle of the chapter I didn’t always feel compelled to pick it right back up. It probably took longer for me to read it than it really should have.

I also rolled my eyes a few times at the dialogue in the modern story line. It just felt kind of juvenile given the age of the characters. I’m about the same age as the modern protagonist and I know literally no one who talks that way. Maybe when we were younger? It’s obviously not that big of a deal, but it did take me out of the story enough that it stuck with me.

And as always, I really love the inclusion of real-life history and characters. I always like to follow up with a little research into the real stories of those characters and was pleased to find a pretty thorough “here’s what really happened” at the end of the novel. I’m interested to read Nancy Mitford’s work. And imagine my pleasant surprise to find that The Pursuit of Love has been adapted by Amazon Prime! What timing!

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin – Trade Publishing for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.