The Lost Bookshop

The Lost Bookshop (2023) by Evie Woods is a magical realism novel that intertwines three characters’ stories and first-person points of view; the novel centers around books and the search for a lost manuscript. Evie Woods is the pseudonym for Irish author Evie Gaughan, who has published three other novels (The Heirloom, The Story Collector, and The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris) under her real name. Her books often incorporate historical and contemporary settings as well as elements of magical realism. The Lost Bookshop has appeared on several bestseller lists. The novel is an homage to books and the love of reading as well as an exploration of what people will do to find love and a sense of belonging.

This guide uses the 2023 paperback edition published by One More Chapter, a division of HarperCollins. Direct quotes retain the British spelling of the original text.

Content Warning: The book and this guide include depictions of spousal abuse, parental abuse, alcoholism, outdated language surrounding mental health (“asylums”), forced hospitalizations, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

The story is framed by a third-person Prologue and Epilogue. The Prologue introduces a mysterious bookshop and its owner, Martha. Martha welcomes a boy into her bookshop and offers to tell him a story. Then, the text shifts to first-person narration, with alternating chapters told by three main characters: Martha, Henry, and Opaline.

In 1921, Opaline Carlisle runs away from home to escape a marriage arranged by her brother, Lyndon. She travels from London to Paris and meets Armand, a rare-book dealer. She finds a job at a bookstore and befriends the owner, Sylvia. While there, she meets famous authors, including James Joyce, and she begins a love affair with Armand.

In contemporary times, Martha and Henry meet in Dublin, Ireland. Martha has run away from her abusive husband, Shane, and works as a live-in housekeeper for Madame Bowden, an eccentric elderly woman who lives in a house at 12 Ha’penny Lane. Henry is a PhD student from England who has come to Dublin in search of a mysterious bookshop and a lost Emily Brontë manuscript, hinted at in a 1920s letter written by Miss Opaline Gray. When Henry tries to find the bookshop at 11 Ha’penny Lane, he finds only Madame Bowden’s house. While there, Henry befriends Martha.

In the 1920s storyline, Lyndon eventually finds Opaline in Paris and kidnaps her, intending to force her into an arranged marriage, but Armand helps her escape. Sylvia sends Opaline to Dublin to work for Mr. Fitzpatrick in his antiques shop. Unfortunately, Mr. Fitzpatrick has died. His son, Matthew, offers to lease Opaline the shop instead.

In the contemporary storyline, tree roots inexplicably grow through the walls of Martha’s basement apartment, and a book titled A Place Called Lost mysteriously appears. However, Martha is accustomed to strange occurrences because she can read people’s pasts and feelings; whenever words from an unknown story appear in her head, she feels compelled to tattoo them on her back. Martha tells Henry about her abusive husband, and Henry tells her about his father’s abuse and alcoholism. In addition, he admits that he’s engaged, but despite this, they kiss. Afterward, Henry returns to England to officially break off his engagement. He leaves a note for Martha, but she doesn’t find it and assumes he has left permanently. While in England, Henry’s sister has a baby, delaying his return to Dublin. Martha’s husband, Shane, finds her and tries to drag her home. During the struggle, he falls down the stairs and dies. Madame Bowden promises to take care of it. Days later, the police inform Martha that her husband’s body was found in the river. Martha attends the funeral, and no one suspects she had anything to do with it. Martha’s mother, who is nonspeaking, speaks for the first time and apologizes for not saving Martha from Shane. Henry returns and explains his absence, but Martha fears being hurt again and rejects him. Agreeing to be friends, they search for the Brontë manuscript.

Back in 1922, Opaline runs her bookshop and falls in love with Matthew. She attends an auction in London, where she again sees Armand, and they spend the night together. During this time, she searches for evidence that Emily Brontë wrote a second novel before her death. She finds a hidden notebook containing the first pages of what appears to be Emily Brontë’s manuscript. She tells Armand about her find, but he believes she’s incapable of managing such a major discovery and tells her to give it to him. Opaline refuses and he leaves, furious. She never sees him again or tells him that she’s pregnant with his child. Lyndon then finds Opaline again. He places her in a mental health facility against her will. There, she has her baby and is told it died; however, the baby is alive, and Lyndon secretly sells it to a childless couple. Opaline is imprisoned in the corrupt hospital for 18 years before escaping by threatening the doctor. She returns to the bookshop in Dublin. By now, World War II has begun. A prisoner of war (POW), Josef Wolffe, comes to the shop because the POWs are allowed to leave the camp to attend the nearby college. He visits every day, bringing gifts. When Josef is sent back to his home in Austria, Opaline realizes that she loves him but will likely never see him again.

In the contemporary storyline, Martha and Henry find more clues about Opaline’s life in the psychiatric hospital and losing her baby. In addition, Martha receives a visit from her mother, who tells her that Martha’s grandmother Rose was adopted. Through records, Martha and Henry realize that Martha’s grandmother Rose was Opaline’s missing daughter. Martha also discovers that the words tattooed on her back inexplicably match the Brontë manuscript that Opaline found in 1922.

In the earlier storyline, Opaline decides to fight her brother. She reveals his dark past as a murderous soldier during World War I to the newspapers and then confronts him in person. He reveals that he’s not her brother but her father and that the people she knew as her parents were her grandparents. He also reveals that her baby is alive. As Opaline leaves, Lyndon dies by suicide. Opaline then spends years searching for her daughter. She writes A Place Called Lost as a message, hoping her daughter will find her. In 1952, Josef returns to Dublin, and they remain together.

In the contemporary storyline, Martha and Henry finish reading A Place Called Lost and realize that it’s a message explaining how to find the bookshop. Now that Martha has found her own worth and reconciled with her past, the bookshop suddenly appears where the house had been.

The Epilogue shifts back to third person, and Martha finishes telling the story to the boy in the bookshop. Then, Henry walks in, revealing that he and Martha are now married and run the bookshop together. The last lines state that Emily Brontë’s missing manuscript remained safely hidden away in an Irish bank vault, “waiting to become a part of someone else’s story” (431).