This book is so special. A love letter to love, books, and the power that both have to change lives. So enjoyed that Love, Fate, and Death are important characters in the story. “She regarded books like the sea-she could swim through them . . . her plan was to look back at the end of her life over the long and exciting course she had swum through times and hearts and currents of knowledge and different worlds and emotions.” Highly recommend, releases Tuesday, July 25th!

Wasn’t a fan of this one but I do remember liking THE LITTLE PARIS BOOKSHOP but I think my reading taste has changed and I no longer can tolerate such flowery writing. And I also just did not enjoy how cheesy it was - Love as a narrator?!? Come on!!!!

The Little Village of Book Lovers didn't work for me. I just couldn't get into it. The writing style was hard for me to follow.

The Little Village of Book Lovers, by Nina George, just did not work for me. While I loved George's previous work, my imagination could not quite accept the personified Love serving as narrator. The plot meandered in many directions without a great deal of plot progression. Nonetheless, George's ability to use language to create a mood and sense of fantasy is masterful. While this book might not have worked for me, I am confident that many others will love it. Please read other reviews before passing on this selection. Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read a digital ARC.

I am normally a huge fan of books about books, bookshops, and libraries, but this book just did not work for me. As hard as I tried, I just could not get into it. I was not a fan of the writing style, and just couldn't find an emotional connection to any of the characters. To me, this was more of a love story than a story about books, so maybe that is where our paths diverged. Overall, I would just say that this book was not for me.

So, I guess that there was a book in which this book within a book was mentioned. I didn’t read it. This was a book trying really hard to be quaint. I actually liked the idea of a book with love being the narrating character. It was not well executed. It was a book from another book for people who read the first book and wanted the book within the book. Not for me.

A sweet story from the heart of France in the 1960s. The book follows a young girl Marie-Jeanne who begins using her special abilities to see the glow and marks left by Love to serve as a matchmaker in her village, often through the mobile library she helps operate. But with each match, she questions herself and when she will find her own “southern light” soulmate. The narrators change throughout the novel, including Love, Death, and an olive tree.
This is a quick but sweet new novel from Nina George. The story, itself, is beautiful, but the constant changing of narrators (and not always making it clear who is narrating) sometimes made the story hard to follow.
Thank you to Random House Ballantine for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This will release on 7/25!

THE LITTLE VILLAGE OF BOOK LOVERS by Nina George is my latest effort to try something outside my usual genres.

The story is narrated mostly by Love with a few other characters like Fate and an Olive Tree as well as 3rd person narration. It centers around a girl, Marie-Jeanne who grows up in an unusual family and can see love in the form of glowing "Southern Lights" on them, but cannot see any on herself.

This felt very much like a fable. There was a lot of commentary inside the story given by various entities.

I have read George's Little Paris Bistro and felt it was a sweet story, and when I chose this, I expected something similar. While it was sweet, it was also a bit much for me. I think my mood was not in this. I found the story choppy and hard to follow despite its short nature, and a bit too dreamy.

For those who have read The Little Paris Bookshop and loved it, I imagine this will be a lovely follow-up. Also those who love a sweet love story using books may enjoy this tale.

It was OK for me. ⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to @netgalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read this ARC and share my thoughts in advance of the July 25th pub day.

The Little Village of Book Lovers
This book is about love and books.
Marie-Jeanne was an orphan who lived with her foster parents, Francis and Elsa in the bucolic village of Nyons. The village was nestled between mountains in the south of France.
Francis decided that the area needed access to books and set up a “bookabus” , a mobile book truck that toured the area filled with books for locals to borrow. The idea was initially met with resistance but eventually caught on. Marie-Jeanne traveled with Francis and got to meet several lonely book lovers.
The young girl had an uncanny ability to see lights on the bodies of some of the villagers. She learned that those lights indicated where the people had been touched by love. She also discovered that she alone could see the lights.
Then Marie-Jeanne decided that she had to set up something to make the lonely people meet the person they were meant to love.
The narrator of the story is Love and many parts of the story contains quotes about love and books and their effects on humans.
This book was first mentioned in the author’s international best seller, The Little Paris Bookshop, which she wrote in 2013. This is a story that will inspire book lovers and also those who enjoy stories about rural France.
I received an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The story starts out very slow with so many characters that I had a hard time keeping everyone in order.
All in all, a ok read but not one I’d want to read again.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

This novel set in the south of France tells the story of a family that sets up a mobile library, dedicated to bringing learning and a life of the mind to the small villages in the area. Narrated by a voice who identifies itself as "Love", much of this story is told in soliloquy on the nature of Love, Fate, Intelligence and Death. It took me awhile to sort out the point of view, and ultimately I lost interest in that aspect of the story. The middle part of the story, where the voracious child reader begins to absorb new books was delightful. I'm not a big fan of this genre, and this book will likely be more appealing to those who are.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Nina George’s The Little Village of Book Lovers opens with a brief prologue excerpted from George’s earlier The Little Paris Bookshop. Paris bookseller Monsieur Perdu hands his last copy of Sanary’s Southern Lights to a writer who has asked what Perdu does when he “can’t go on.” Recognizing the young man’s distress, Perdu instructs him to read three pages each morning before getting out of bed. Readers of The Little Paris Bookshop may recall that Perdu’s effort to identify the mysterious author Sansary plays a major role in that novel. Although having read The Little Paris Bookshop will add to the enjoyment of reading George’s latest, The Little Village of Book Lovers can be read as a stand-alone novel.

Set in a remote area of southern France primarily during the late 1960s to mid-1980s, The Little Village of Book Lovers is narrated by an allegorical character. The invisible Love chooses if and when he will touch each person, making love possible. Other allegorical characters, such as Fate, Death, and Logic, may act first or may later complicate individual love experiences.

Even as a young child, the central character, Marie-Jeanne, can see a glow on people whom Love has touched. George peoples the book with quirky, mostly lonely people who exhibit that glow but have not yet found their match or have found someone, lost at and given up on love, and who now remain unaware that Love has touched them again, providing a second chance. Then one day. Marie-Jeanne's foster dad has a risky idea.

The Little Village of Book Lovers brings to life the people and landscape of rural southern France, an area largely wanting to retain its traditional way of life. With many touches of magical realism and a look at reading, love, and human nature from many angles, Nina George gifts her readers with the mysterious book that Monsieur Perdu handed distressed writer Maximilian “Max” Jordan.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine/Random House for an advance reader copy of Jean Perdu’s no-longer-mysterious literary remedy for loneliness and insecurity.

I loved “The Little Paris Bookshop” and so was excited to find this one was coming out. It’s quite different, and yet still captures much of the first novel. You don’t have to have read the other to read “Village”, but it will give you more insight into the beginning chapter that sets up the book itself.
In many ways, it’s hard to describe just exactly what it was I liked about this book so well. It is narrated mostly by Love, with brief moments from others like Fate, Death or an old Olive Tree. There are moments where you aren’t really following the story at all, but instead seeing the world from what it must look like on the other side of the emotions – we see things from Love’s point of view. And it’s utterly fascinating.
I will admit, I worried in the beginning. This book has a slow, slow start. It doesn’t necessarily pick up the pace until you hit about 55% of the way through the book. Instead of being plot driven, it is much more about the characters, specifically Marie-Jeanne. We start the book when she is just a babe (occasionally with glances further back in time), and proceed till she is in her pre-teens, and then a bit more forward, until finally she’s, I think, in her thirties at the end. It is by no means action packed or suspenseful, nor paced in the normal way. Because, I think, life nor love is like that. So if you go into the book with that outlook, you’ll be much more prepared to accept it for what it is.
It shows so deeply that Love is complicated, messy, heartbreaking, warm, simple, torturous, easy to miss, and maybe even easy to find. In small moments of everyday life, in big moments, and daily trials, we are shown how people try to fight love, or find it, or rail against not having it. We see pieces of peoples’ hearts as they observe the person they love, and we see people learn about themselves and face their own fears where love is concerned. It isn’t focused on only romantic love either, but love between family members, friends, and communities.
We see people find their soulmates (with a little intervention) and others realize that they had them all along. It is heartbreakingly soul filling to read. In some ways it can help you to take a new perspective on Love itself. Part of me wishes there were really the embodiments of Love, Fate, Logic, Chaos and more walking around and filling people up random amounts of emotions and traits. Nina George does the impossible in showing us so many facets of Love (and LGBTQ+ rep too), while also showing the absence of Love itself.
Past discussing in detail all about love – I want to mention the beautiful descriptions we are given. Nina George writes of places in a way that makes you feel you are there. It inspires the want to travel to see them all in person. From small beach restaurants to lonely hotels in the mountains, Marie-Jeanne’s world may be small, but you’ll feel a part of it. It takes place in France, in the 1960s.
Last but not least, I must mention the books. It is titled “The Little Village of Book Lovers” after all. The mobile library does not take off until about halfway through the book, so again, remember it is slow paced. But it is through books that so much happens within the novel. From discussions on what the authors meant, to how authors write, to what the books mean individually to a person, and to a community at large. Nina George does a fun job of conveying how books can change your mind, open up your world, and give you a way to look at things from a different perspective. The villagers were a bit scared at first of books, and indeed many resisted outright, until Francis and a few others helped him wear them all down. He takes a great chance with his “bookabus”, but it certainly pays off. For a book lover, occasionally book seller, and lover of learning, I enjoyed this part very much.
I read this as an eBook, and I can say this may be one of those rare times where I really want a print copy specifically so I can mark it up. This is a book that demands annotation – from the prose to the lyrical writing, to the wonderful quotes contained within.
So, I think, dear readers, that you must be prepared. Based on other reviews I have seen, you’ll either love it completely or give up at the halfway mark. I hope some of you find what I did in its pages.

This book wasn't what I was expecting, and that really colored my view of it. I was expecting a romance, and that's not what I got. I wasn't a fan of the narrator, or the plot really.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I am so disappointed. I had such high hopes for this book. I love Nina George but this just missed for me. The characters were just "OK" for me and the plot was mediocre. I am not sure I am going to purchase this for my library. I will have to think on that...

Thank you so much netgalley for the opportunity to review this one. Unfortunately this one was not for me but everyone is so subjective with books that this might be for you.

I dnf'd this book at around 25%. I didn't realize this was a companion book to a book I hadn't read before. So right off I felt like maybe I was missing something. But I struggled so much with the way this book was written. I made it 25% in and I still don't really follow what is happening. Which was really disappointing, because I love stories that are narrated like this - in this case it's love, but I think also fate and death - and there is part of my issue - I was never clear on who is narrating the story.

I received an electronic ARC from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine through NetGalley.
Readers get to read the book Southern Lights shared in the author's novel -The Little Paris Bookshop. The book opens with a scene in that shop where Monsieur Perdu passes the book on to a customer seeking ease from heartache. From here, the story unfolds with various emotions taking on human characteristics. Love tells this story and serves as the narrator and friend to the main character, Marie-Jeanne. Readers meet her as a baby and watch as she grows up with her foster parents. We see how she experiences life and speaks with Love and her dearest friend the olive tree. Readers can draw their own conclusions on what this tree represents. Marie-Jeanne has a special gift and can see the bonds that connect true loves to each other though she does not have this glow herself. Each chapter tells a vignette in this community's life and intertwines the characters to show how much they grow and learn. I appreciate the message that reading encourages growth and moving beyond ourselves and our local traditions.
It's a delight to read the book referred to in George's other novel and see what encouraged Perdu and helped him heal.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Ballantine Books, and I'm voluntarily leaving a review; all opinions are my own.

Genre: Magical Realism, Fantasy, Books about Books, Romance
Spice Level: Sweet

This was my first book by Nina George.
Somehow, I didn't realize emotions like Love and Fear were going to be personified.

Once I figured that out, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The connections and ways people remember books, the joy of holding a book, how books can be revolutionary, and all the other feelings you might have about books are here.

It's absolutely delightful to follow Marie-Jeanne and her journey of seeing love but not having it. She wonders if something is wrong with her. (Haven't we all wondered that at some point?) It's such a human story of love that might be new, or tempestuous, or patient, or old, or even testy.

I highly recommend this book! It's a fast read and absorbing.

Happy reading!

This was such a sweet book that made me want to take a holiday and get lost in stories and villages - sipping coffee and reading books. This was a perfect summer read!