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Gallery Books
August 2013
On Sale: August 20, 2013
Featuring: Esme Garland; Mitchell van Leuven
352 pages
ISBN: 147671424X
EAN: 9781476714240
Kindle: B009K4ZSNQ
Paperback / e-Book
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Fiction Family Life
A witty, sharply observed debut novel about a young woman who finds unexpected salvation while working in a quirky used bookstore in Manhattan. Impressionable and idealistic, Esme Garland is a young British woman who finds herself studying art history in New York. She loves her apartment and is passionate about the city and her boyfriend; her future couldnβt look brighter. Until she finds out that sheβs pregnant. Esmeβs boyfriend, Mitchell van Leuven, is old-money rich, handsome, successful, and irretrievably damaged. When he dumps Esmeβjust before she tries to tell him about the babyβshe resolves to manage alone. She will keep the child and her scholarship, while finding a part-time job to make ends meet. But that is easier said than done, especially on a student visa. The Owl is a shabby, second-hand bookstore on the Upper West Side, an all-day, all-night haven for a colorful crew of characters: handsome and taciturn guitar player Luke; Chester, who hyperventilates at the mention of Lolita; George, the owner, who lives on protein shakes and idealism; and a motley company of the timeless, the tactless, and the homeless. The Owl becomes a nexus of good in a difficult world for Esmeβbut will it be enough to sustain her? Even when Mitchell, repentant and charming, comes back on the scene? A rousing celebration of books, of the shops where they are sold, and of the people who work, read, and live in them, The Bookstore is also a story about emotional discovery, the complex choices we all face, and the accidental inspirations that make a life worth the reading.
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