The Book Swap

July 22, 2024
Bickers debuts with a fresh tale of two lonely hearts connected by their love of reading. Thirty-year-old Erin Connolly accidentally donates a heavily annotated copy of her favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird, to a community library hutch near her London flat. Making matters worse, the book held a treasured postcard from her childhood best friend, Bonnie, who died of cancer three years earlier. Browsing the hutch a few days after dropping off the novel, Erin is surprised to find it returned, with more notes, prompting her to become pen pals with her “Mystery Man” via marginalia in other books. A parallel narrative follows James, the author of the notes, who’s desperate to keep Erin writing and worried she’ll stop if she finds out who he is—an old friend from their school days who betrayed her to get his bullies off his case. The crisis point occurs when Erin returns home for the anniversary of Bonnie’s death and has a run-in with James. The will-they-or-won’t-they plot hews closely to a rom-com structure, and the setup is a bit heavy-handed, but Bickers charms in her depiction of how James and Erin bond through literature, and how literature changes their lives. This will have bookworms swooning. Agent: Jemima Forrester, David Higham Assoc.

Starred review from August 1, 2024
Three years ago, Erin's best friend, Bonnie, died. They had been friends since childhood, and Erin still struggles with her grief. James, the third person in their friendship, betrayed Erin when they were teens, and Erin has never forgiven him. After Erin rage-quits her awful job, she decides to follow Marie Kondo's advice and let go of everything that doesn't bring her joy. In the cleanup, one item, her annotated copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, is accidentally given to a Little Free Library. Erin visits the site everyday hoping the book will be returned. When it is, it is filled with different annotations and an invitation to continue the "conversation" in Great Expectations. As the book pals write back and forth inside different classic novels, they slowly begin to fall in love; all the while not knowing that they have a prior connection. Told in alternating chapters between Erin and James, this is a lovely and lively tale of second chances, following one's dreams, and books. Bickers deals with sensitive topics with a deft and delicate hand. While there is a sweet romance, family and all its messy complications are at the heart of this wonderful novel. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.

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