Loveday Cardew was content with her quiet life, working in a second-hand bookshop in York, letting the eccentric owner (and something of a substitute grandfather) Archie be loud enough for the both of them.

Then she finds a lost poetry book on the bus.

Can Loveday come to terms with her fragile family past and personal tragedy to let her enjoy the life she deserves?

Lost For Words by Stephanie Butland is a charming, heart-warming story that combines all your favourite parts of an easy holiday read with the pace and thought provoking themes of a consuming drama.

I admit when the characters were introduced, Loveday with her nose ring and tattoos, and Nathan Avebury, poet and magician, my brain did scream “manic-pixie girl ‘fixes’ jaded male interest’ but thankfully that was not at all the case! As you read and understand more about Loveday’s history you see the see why she is presented, both physically and personality, as prickly and standoffish. All the characters are richly written, the good and the bad, and leave you wishing you knew more about them once the story is over.

I imagine people will be tempted to write this off as chic-lit but not only would that be a disservice but a complete mistake. It is a deeply human story and it’s set in a bookshop, what more could you want?

Once I became used to the name Loveday I started to enjoy this story. I then discovered it is a Cornish name. Loveday is quite a mysterious character. Something that happened in her past has damaged her. She is content to hideaway in a bookshop with only the owner Archie for company because she knows he doesn't ask any questions about her past.
But secrets can only remain secrets until such time as someone finds them out.
When books she recognises are sent to the bookshop Loveday doesn't know who to trust...who knows about her past?

I loved this story. Loveday is such a gentle fragile girl who can be very easily hurt. Archie,the owner of the bookshop has helped Loveday in more ways than she knows and it is a lovely man.
Bit by bit we begin to understand Loveday's story and why she seems to be alone in the world.
It made me want to take her back in time and fix things for her.
This book had most of the things I want from a story, a secret past, love interest and a few interesting characters. I am now reading another book by the same author and I'm enjoying that too.

I began this book smugly comparing it to a combination of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Bookworm (both of which I loved by the way, just in case you can't be bothered chasing the links to my reviews).

However, the further I read, the more Loveday allowed me in to her life, thoughts and memories, and the more enchanted I became with her individuality. Yes, she suffered childhood trauma that marred her adult development like Eleanor, and yes, she retreated into books to avoid social contact like Lucy. Still Loveday has a unique and engaging voice and her prickly attitude just makes the intimacy feel more rewarding.

Getting the story direct from Loveday's narrative point of view allowed an intimacy that her character would not normally permit, but also created tension in the form of the mysterious books and her personal history. As Loveday is an unreliable, if honest, narrator, we are led to follow her logical fallacies and misunderstandings in some places, where in others we can read between the lines to see what she is unable to. I found myself pleading with the book for her to just 'TELL HIM ALREADY!' on more than one occasion, even as I understood why she didn't and couldn't.

I confess I wasn't a big fan of Nathan and Loveday's poetry. I liked the emotions communicated, the content, of the poems, but felt the structures lacked a poetic rhythm and elegance that I somehow expected from those characters. This was my only minor quibble however with an otherwise excellent and very enjoyable read.

I loved Archie, loathed Rob, ached for Loveday's parents, and cheered her on every page of the way through her journey of discovery. And naturally I loved the bookish references (including the carefully classified chapter headings)!

Highly recommend this one, and definitely intend to seek out more from Stephanie Butland to add to my teetering stacks.

A more complex story than I was expecting and one it took me a while to get into. I put it down a number of times but in the end enjoyed it. The relationships are darker and the characters more interesting than is often the case but I did find the reveal too slow and the characters too self-consciously difficult to really connect with. It felt similar to Eleanor Oliphant... but unlike that book I wasn't keen to find out the dark secret.

Beautifully written, this is a really heartwarming read. Loveday has had a really difficult life and has retreated into the world of books. This is about the how and why, it's also about moving forward and creating a future.
Books are definitely better than people most of the time, but taking the chance to give yourself a happy ever after is what makes life worth living.

Dealing with contemporary topics this is a story of hope and love, throwing off the baggage of the past and moving forward into a positive future. Loveday Jenna Cardew finds herself in the care of the social system at 10 years old. Her life is defined by trying to deal with the trauma that resulted in this. She constructs a safe environment and life but is eventually forced to confront her past. (Trying to avoid spoilers so apologies if this all seems vague).

I didn't want to put this book down. I kept worrying what was happening to Loveday when I wasn't reading !!!! A thoroughly enjoyable read.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, it was simply a delightful read. I really loved the story and how it played out, really makes you think about things. It truly was a beautiful and heartfelt story from start to finish.

As for the characters, I really did feel for the main character Loveday, the things that she went through in her past and how they affected her future. I loved seeing how she coped and dealt with it all.

I adored the setting of the story esp the part where a second hand bookshop was featured a lot.

Beautiful, painful, cathartic and kind of awe inspiring, just some of the words that describe this wonderful story.

One of the best books I have read. My compliments to the author.

Let me just say first of all that the wonderfully named Loveday Cardew is my favourite character of 2018 so far! (I’m reliably informed it’s a traditional Cornish name.)

Loveday is a 25 year old bibliophile working in a little second hand bookshop, the titular ‘Lost for Words’, in York. She has an interesting collection of literary tattoos and a nose ring, and absolutely loves working day in, day out with her beloved books. Being completely honest, she prefers books to people, except perhaps for Archie, and even then she keeps him at arms length as much as he allows. She’s quite spiky, but as we find out, with good reason.

As we meet Loveday, she has just found a poetry book on the floor near a bin. She’s fairly outraged and disappointed in the human race for discarding a book with such disregard but decides to give the reader the benefit of the doubt and assume that they might have accidentally misplaced the book. She puts a notice on the lost and found board in the bookshop, and a few days later, into her life walks Nathan Aveyard.

The story is told in several narrative strands that are labelled in a way similar to library books; Crime, Poetry and History. Each label pertains to a particular strand of the story – Loveday’s past, her previous experience with a scary ex, and her present with Nathan. This journey takes us deeper into her life experiences and gradually reveals the reasons behind her reluctance to get into a relationship.

This comes to the fore as Nathan and Loveday hit it off. She finds herself falling for this poetic, gentle soul, and every step closer he gets to her, she takes one step back. She doesn’t believe she can ever make a relationship work

Archie is watching all of this from the wings. The eccentric, larger than life bookshop owner with the celebrity lifestyle and a closer eye on Loveday than she can possibly imagine. A father figure to her, she knows he cares about her, but she doesn’t really know how much he has actually done for her.

Throughout the book, Loveday grows before us, emotionally and mentally and we watch as her relationship with Nathan first grows, then falters under the weight of her past pressing down on her.

Full of quirkiness and little tips of the hat to those of us who love to read, this is a wonderfully written book with engaging and likeable characters, and some real gut-punching emotion.

Lost for words is entertaining story about a young girl, with the amazing name Loveday,she works in a book shop, comes from a broken home and the story alludes to her past in fragments until the full story is revealed near the end. The book is quirky and well written and I liked the characters and i look forward to reading more from this author.

These days, if you put ‘bakery’, cake shop’ or ‘bookshop’ in a novel, preferably in the title, it seems to guarantee a market. <I>Lost for Words</I> is in the bookshop niche but just for a change the heroine doesn’t move to some remote part of the British Isles and magically open her own book shop. Loveday works in someone else’s bookshop and it’s just the sort we’d all like to visit: crammed full of second-hand books. It’s owned by Archie, a lovable, larger than life figure. It’s clear that something terrible happened to Loveday in her childhood. She lives alone, keeps people at bay, trusts no one (except maybe Archie). She’s also being stalked by one man who is possibly mad and pursued by a perfectly sane and attractive one. Gradually the mystery of the trauma is revealed and it’s a pretty horrific thing for a child to have had to cope with. Can anything break through the shell she’s carefully built around herself? The bookshop, the unusual characters and a horrifying event at the end make this quite an interesting read.

Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars - I liked it.

I'm not a big contemporary romance reader, but do love a novel set in a bookshop! This sugary looking cover does not, imho, do this book justice; it has a surprisingly dark plot about domestic violence and the lasting impact it has on the lives of those involved.

The chapters are split between three time frames, all narrated by Loveday, who gradually reveals more about her past and why she is the way she is.

Loveday is a sympathetic character and I appreciated her unabashed misanthropy, it was a refreshing trait in a protagonist. The romance element unfolded pretty naturally - the characters all seem reasonably human and believable and the mystery surrounding the books that appear in the shop is well done.

The writing was quite colloquial, reflecting Loveday narrating, and it could sometimes be a bit unclear. I think my main complaint is the ending - perhaps the author made that decision (no spoilers!) to stop it becoming too saccharine?

Recommended to those who like their romances grounded in reality, quaint settings, eccentric friends, quirky protagonists...and bookshops :)

Loveday Cardew lives a solitary life and works in a second-hand bookshop, with her only friend Archie, in York. The novel switches between past and present; her childhood and what has made her so reclusive and how she comes to make a new kind of life for herself.

I have to admit that I’ve become a little snobbish about ‘chick-lit’ and I’d assumed that this would be a light read that I might enjoy and then forget about. How wrong I was! The characters are multifaceted and memorable and I found myself really caring about Loveday and her future. This was a wonderful book, especially for book lovers, and I’ll be seeking out more by this author.

I loved this book set in a wonderful book shop! A quirky main character with a great back story will keep you interested as you follow her journey.

A great story line with well rounded characters. Plenty to keep you interested. Well worth a read.

Understandably this book is about a book shop, not waterstones or WHSmith but a small independent book shop
One were you find old treasures and make new friends because the owner Archie is almost a mystical character who has a wide and assorted range of friends
Loveday is a young woman from a very troubled past that the writer gently teases out bit by bit, almost like if she told us all at once we wouldn't be able to cope
There are others in the book but these are main two why are they successfully good friends ? What do they have in common? As the story unfolds there are surprises round every turn, some good but some sad
If you love reading as much as I do you will love this book too

A bookshop is not magic, but it can slowly heal your heart.

This was a heart warming book. What happens to us when life goes wrong at an early age? This is the story of love, redemption, healing, expression and overcoming our fears. An interesting cast of characters and the book shop setting help Loveday grow into herself. A coming of age tale...

An enjoyable,well written and thought provoking story. I definitely would love to read more from this author.

I found the beginning of the book a bit slow and I had to push myself to carry on reading. However the book did get better and I gradually got absorbed into the bookshop in York and the lovely kind man Archie who had taken Loveday under his wing. Loveday has withdrawn into herself after a damaged childhood and finds it hard to trust people but her love of books and the bookshop she works are the things she is passionate about. The author has a very descriptive way of writing bringing the characters and places to life, I really liked the part on Whitby and how the past met the present. The ending was a little predictable but all in all a good story well written

Absolutely loved this book from beginning to end, Loveday was a lovely, quirky character and so well fleshed out that it felt like I knew her and genuinely cared for her.
The plot was heartwarming and emotional, touching on various subjects like spousal abuse in a sensitive manner and keeping me intrigued and wanting more throughout.
The pace flowed easily, the language smooth and easy to read, the book overall was unputdownable.
I can’t wait to read more from this author.