The Last Bookshop in London is a historical fiction novel set in London during the German blitzkrieg of World War II. The story explores how the power of a good book can temporarily soothe anxiety during a crisis and transport readers away from dangerous realities. The novel also has strong themes of love, relationships, duty, human decency, and perseverance.

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Let’s begin with a quick summary of The Last Bookshop in London.

Grace Bennett and her friend Viv trade small-town life for potential opportunities in London. They have a place to stay – with Mrs. Weatherford, a good friend of Grace’s late mother – but they both still need jobs. The two dream of working at Harrods, but Grace doesn’t have the required letter of recommendation. Her new landlady steps in and convinces a local bookshop owner, Mr. Evans, to hire her for six months.

The Primrose Hill bookstore is dusty and disorganized, and the owner treats it more like a hobby to pay for his book habit than a business. Grace is undeterred. She grew up working in her family’s shop and knows what to do. She starts by cleaning and organizing. What she doesn’t know is books, but that is about to change.

She meets a handsome customer, George, who is a regular patron of Primrose Hill. They strike up a conversation and she confesses that she’s not much of a reader. He responds by recommending The Count of Monte Cristo and lends her his well-worn copy. Grace is immediately hooked – on the story, reading, and the handsome customer. Unfortunately, he soon leaves for war. England and the RAF need him.

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The progress at the bookshop, Grace’s newly formed love of reading, and the budding romance are all told with the backdrop of escalating tensions between Great Britain and Germany. The landlady’s son is drafted, Viv volunteers to serve, the house’s flower garden is converted into a vegetable garden, and blackout curtains become the home’s newest accessories.

In the early stages of the conflict between the two countries, Londoners were inconvenienced by things like false air raids and keeping their homes and businesses dark at night, but inconvenience soon turns to terror as the German blitz ramps up. During one of the air raids, Grace finds herself reading out loud to a group of people who are sheltering in one of the Underground stations. Her listeners are grateful for the temporary distraction from their worries, and this becomes an ongoing thing.

Groups of Londoners also show up at the bookshop to buy books and hear Grace read to them. Although this first reading hour is a spontaneous event, naturally shy Grace comes through for the customers. Having recently become an avid reader, Grace knows the power of a good story and is happy to help people escape reality for a while.

Meanwhile, the constant bombing takes its toll on the city and its citizens. Grace becomes an air raid warden, patrolling the streets at night to help bombing victims and ensuring people are complying with lights out policies. Some of the tragedy hits close to home for her. She encounters death and destruction, and is heartbroken when a bomb severely damages the bookshop.

By now, the Primrose Hill shop has built a large community of supporters, many of whom volunteer to patch up the store so it can keep operating. And, because a nearby row of bookstores was decimated by bombs, Primrose Hill’s new sign says, “The Last Bookshop in London.”

I liked The Last Bookshop in London. I would label it as a “cozy World War II novel.” Although it’s frank about the toll of war, it’s not as tragic as novels like All the Light We Cannot See or as gritty as books such as Life After Life. It doesn’t linger on the sad parts and has an overall vibe of hope and kindness.

Grace is an interesting character with a strong sense of duty, perseverance, and compassion. I enjoyed seeing her evolve into a reader while also transforming the shop into a welcoming commercial success. I’m even thinking about reading The Count of Monte Cristo to find out why she was so captivated by the story. (But wow! It’s a 39-hour audiobook!)

The strong themes of duty, resilience, fellowship, and kindness in The Last Bookshop in London also resonated with me. I can’t imagine what it was like to have experienced the blitz, but I do understand that survival required strength and unity. The Last Bookshop in London portrays this fortitude very well. Keep calm and carry on.

Also, the romance was sweet. And I appreciated the absence of dysfunction in ALL the relationships. I think I’ve been reading too many suspense novels where people are often foul to each other, so it was refreshing to see normal people in normal relationships.

I think fans of World War II fiction will enjoy The Last Bookshop in London. It’s a very clean book that’s appropriate for tweens and above.

And if YOU are a fan of World War II novels, you might want to check out my curated list of 29 highly rated novels set during World War II.