Love on a Bookshelf

by Kiah Thomas

Genres: Romance; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A poignant, moving, joyful and deliciously romantic story of second chances and new beginnings, of grief and learning to let go, and discovering what you want in the places you least expect.

Clarrie Brooks isn't just having a bad day - her life seems to be falling apart. Her boyfriend has just dumped her, she's struggling to keep her beloved grandmother's bookshop afloat and now it's, quite literally, raining inside her run-down apartment.

To top it off, the bookshop loses power for the tenth time this week . . . just as new author Declan Archer walks in to sign stock. After an awkward exchange, Declan leaves - but not before he suggests that Clarrie invest in better lighting. Tired and frustrated, Clarrie suggests that Declan write a better book.

Two years later, Declan has done just that. His new book is on its way to becoming a bestselling cult classic - and he's dedicated it to the bookseller who told him to write a better book. As excitement and speculation builds over the identity of the bookseller, Clarrie finds herself thrown into the spotlight.

Could it be time to turn the page on the past and draft a brand-new story?

A celebration of love and all things bookish, Love on a Bookshelf is perfect for fans of Beth Moran, Victoria Walters and Emily Henry, and anyone who loves warm, big-hearted and uplifting novels.

Release date: June 5, 2025

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 368

Sample

Eighteen months later



‘I’ve been waiting five minutes, Clarence,’ says a voice behind me. A foot taps along with the words, punctuating each one of them.

I put the last few boxes I’ve been carting around out the back, then paste a smile on my face and turn around to Annabel Stone, who has been standing at the front counter for four and a half minutes at most.

Yumi’s eyes glitter with amusement over Annabel’s shoulder, like she’s just waiting for me to look pointedly at a clock. Unfortunately, despite only having been working here twelve months, Yumi can read me . . . well, like a book.

I resolutely ignore her and focus my entire attention on the stern and rather intimidating regular in front of me.

‘I’m so sorry, Annabel, we’ve got a children’s event in less than half an hour so we’ve been flat out this morning.’

Annabel sniffs as though the idea of having children around books is abhorrent.

‘I understand, Clarence,’ she says. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told her to call me Clarrie, she still insists that full names are a sign of respect. ‘Perhaps you could personally assist me, so I can be out before the event begins.’

‘Of course, Annabel,’ I say, like I didn’t know that was coming.

‘There’s a book that’s too high for me to reach,’ she adds.

‘I’ll grab the stepladder,’ I say, already on my way to do just that. Yumi is straight-up laughing now, though she turns it into a cough after I glare at her.

I’m at the top of the ladder, freeing the book – whose spine I couldn’t even see from the ground – when Annabel asks her next question.

‘Tell me, Clarence, do you have the new Francis Coates?’ she asks imperiously.

‘Sorry, the . . . who?’

It’s only the start. This is what Annabel does. She follows me around, pointing to books I can’t reach and naming authors I’ve never heard of until one of us cracks. Spoiler alert: it’s pretty much always me.

It’s twenty-five minutes before I manage to find one that she wants to buy. She nods the Annabel Stone seal of approval, and I breathe a discreet sigh of relief.

‘Excellent choice,’ I tell her, even though I honestly had no idea that the book in my hand even existed, let alone that it was in stock in our shop. I’m just about to ring up the purchase when she taps a finger on the counter.

‘Declan Archer,’ she announces.

I almost drop the book I’m in the process of scanning.

Annabel barely notices, though. She’s busy running her eyes over the bursting shelves and bright displays that have always been one of Brooks’ Books trademarks. They pause on the stand that showcases new releases.

‘I’m surprised you don’t have Declan Archer’s book on display,’ she says. ‘He has a new one.’

I’m surprised that Annabel Stone knows who Declan Archer is, let alone that he has a new book. Not that anyone who’s been in a bookshop in the past two weeks would have been able to miss him. His latest book, Talking to Trees, has gathered something of a cult following; so much so that the media coverage that was initially just local has begun to spread internationally. People do actual pilgrimages to the places mentioned in the book. It’s on the brink of becoming something seriously big. The man himself is apparently reclusive, and has given a total of one interview. It was written, not even in person. Which, of course, only seems to add to his mystery and appeal.

Yumi glances up from where she’s just finished setting up an under-the-sea display, her eyes twinkling. She’s heard the same question from more than one customer in the past few days – has asked me the same question herself.

I give Annabel the same answer I gave all of them.

‘There’s a display of Mr Archer’s books down the back,’ I say with a smile that doesn’t even hurt a little bit. A display that I fought tooth and nail to avoid putting up, until the pile of overdue reminders got so big that they no longer fitted in the drawer into which I’d been shoving them. Until the cash register that’s been in the shop at least half my life finally began to die at the same time Yumi was pointing out the paint peeling in the break room. There is no avoiding that we desperately, urgently need sales. And Declan’s book sells. ‘He seems to be doing very well on his own,’ I tell Annabel, ‘with or without a front-counter display.’

It comes out more pointedly than I intend it to, and I cringe inwardly. There’s a look of pure delight on Yumi’s face, and I know I’m not going to be able to get out of answering questions about this later.

‘Yumi, don’t you have to get changed soon?’ I say to her over Annabel’s shoulder. I am perversely glad Yumi drew the short straw and is the one dressing up today. She sticks her tongue out at me, like an employee most definitely shouldn’t, but then dutifully tramps out to the back room.

‘Right,’ says Annabel, looking at the new-release stand again. ‘He’s a local, you know. Declan Archer.’

‘Is he?’ I say, pretending I don’t know. ‘That’s so lovely.’

The bell above the shop door rings, and I have honestly never been so glad in my life to see a horde of rampaging children dressed up as crabs.

The floor is covered in beanbags, crêpe paper and pipe cleaners, and there are at least five misshapen sea creatures hanging from the shelves in the children’s book section – all signs that Read Under the Sea was a raging success.

Yumi picks up a one-eyed seahorse from where it’s dangling upside down next to Lord of the Rings. She holds it up to her face and looks it in its one eye, which is accompanied by an angry slash that I think is its eyebrow.

‘I love kids,’ she says with a sigh.

I pick up a crab with six pincers from the story-time chair.

‘Me too,’ I say. The words come out more softly than I mean them to, and Yumi looks up at me and rolls her eyes.

‘Sap,’ she says.

‘You said the same thing!’ I say, as though it might actually be worth protesting.

She really is the worst employee in the world. But she’s the best, too. During her job interview she announced that we were going to be best friends. There are a lot of things when it comes to the bookshop that I’m unsure about – like whether the power problems that were once a sweet quirk have become an actual fire issue – but hiring Yumi is not one of those things. Despite my every intention to maintain a professional distance, in the twelve months since she started, she’s become – well, one of my closest friends.

Her hair is currently purple, because she made a bet with one of our elderly customers that she could finish a book before they did, and lost. They adore her, and so do the kids and angry teenagers.

‘It was a good idea, the story time,’ I tell her.

‘I know,’ says Yumi, flopping down onto one of the beanbags. ‘I am a low-key genius. Maybe even a high-key genius.’ There is an almost imperceptible pause. ‘Which we’d know if you tried any of my other ideas.’

Familiar guilt rolls in my stomach. When I first took over the bookshop and everything happened with Gran, I was doing everything I could just to keep my head above water. Yumi was a godsend, but the idea of changing anything – of shifting Brooks’ in any direction that Gran wouldn’t recognise – made me feel physically sick. Then council rates and electricity prices went up, and the number of people buying books went down, and everything started to feel like a risk.

‘Yumi—’ I begin.

‘I know.’ She holds up a hand. ‘It’s okay, Clarrie.’ She studies me for a second, and when she speaks again her voice is so unexpectedly gentle that it brings a lump to my throat. ‘Tell me – how bad is it?’

I hate that she knows the state of the shop’s finances. I tried to keep the worry from her – I’ve done my best to keep it from myself – but it’s difficult to hide the broken tap out the back that hasn’t been fixed; or the fact that half the bills that arrive have bright red lettering stamped on them. I don’t pretend not to know what she’s talking about.

‘If sales don’t pick up, we have six months,’ I tell her, the truth stark in the air. ‘Maybe less.’ Then I make myself say what I’ve selfishly been avoiding saying for a month now: ‘If you want to start looking for another job, I understand.’

Yumi rolls her eyes, then leans back in the beanbag. ‘If the day comes, I’ve got a few offers,’ she says, waving her hand in the general direction of the street. ‘But let’s face it, you’d be lost without me.’ She winks and pushes a beanbag out towards me.

I don’t deny it. I sigh and flop down next to her.

‘Ruth popped in when you were at the till towards the end,’ says Yumi, changing the subject. ‘She asked me to tell you that Knit, Stitch and Yarn is on again this Thursday.’

I used to go sometimes with Gran, but I haven’t been since she went into the nursing home just over eighteen months ago. Ruth invites me every month anyway. She was – is – Gran’s closest friend, and has been for the last forty years.

‘Thanks,’ I say. Yumi doesn’t push on it like she normally does, and I realise too late it’s because she has another agenda.

‘So,’ she says after she’s been quiet for four whole seconds. ‘Declan Archer.’

I shake my head and lean back into the beanbag again.

‘What about him?’ I say in my best disinterested voice.

‘Come on, Clarrie, every time you point to the display down the back, I can basically see you gritting your teeth. And it’s our highest selling book – by a long way – I’d have thought you’d be dancing naked in front of the stand to draw attention there.’

‘I’m fairly confident that would drive people out of the shop,’ I say, even though she’s right. About the sales, not about the naked dancing. At this point, Declan Archer is literally almost paying for Gran’s shop to stay open.

‘Have you read it?’ says Yumi.

‘I started it,’ I tell her truthfully. ‘But, to be honest, I just didn’t find it that engaging.’

‘How many pages?’ she asks. She knows one of my mottos is that every author deserves to have you try for at least a hundred pages.

‘Enough,’ I tell her. ‘There’s really nothing of value in there.’

‘You’re the one always telling me that every book has a reader,’ she says, waving a finger in the air. ‘Annabel mentioned he was a local . . .’

‘If the shop goes bust, you should really consider a career as a detective,’ I tell her, but Yumi’s not even listening any more.

‘. . . so maybe your problem is more personal. Is he an ex-boyfriend or something?’

I scoff. ‘Hardly. I’ve only met him once.’

Yumi grins. Crap.

‘You’ve met him!’ She wiggles her eyebrows and lowers her voice. ‘The plot thickens!’

‘You really need to work on your book jokes,’ I tell her. ‘And I tell you that as your boss, not your friend.’

But Yumi won’t be put off. She pushes herself off the beanbag with purpose and starts striding towards the Talking to Trees display.

‘Yumi, don’t!’ I try to roll out of my own beanbag, cursing the beans shifting under me and wondering how Yumi managed to get out so nimbly.

But I’m too late: she’s already plucking a copy off the shelf.

‘If you open that book, I’m going to fire you.’ I narrow my eyes at her.

Yumi raises an eyebrow at me, then clears her throat and opens the first page.

She doesn’t need to go any further than that.

I curse myself a thousand times over, because honestly, if I hadn’t been so weird about it, she never would’ve known. She would have just one day opened the book, maybe laughed a little at the dedication, then carried on reading.

Instead, she pauses. Her eyes light up and she looks up to grin at me, then back down at the page again.

A nicer employee might let it go, or sympathetically pat me on the shoulder. They’d listen to the story and tell me that Declan Archer probably had another encounter, that it definitely wasn’t me he was referring to.

But Yumi is not a nicer employee.

‘Clarence Brooks,’ she says. ‘Is this dedication talking about who I think it’s talking about?’

‘I have no idea what you mean,’ I tell her, but it’s too late. She clears her throat and, in what I think is meant to be her Declan Archer voice, she reads the dedication out loud. But I’m not listening, because I already know what it says.

For the bookseller who told me to write a better book. I hope you managed to fix your lights.

Yumi looks up at me again, and her eyes are bright with amusement.

‘You told Declan Archer to write a better book!’ she whispers, her tone full of the kind of scandalised delight she usually reserves for her breakdowns of The Bachelor.

‘In my defence, his first book was boring,’ I tell her.

‘Did you – Clarence Brooks, a bookseller whose sacred duty it is to defend authors and their precious works – just call a book boring?’

I rub my forehead, trying to pretend the sight of Talking to Trees doesn’t make me feel physically ill. I can still remember the moment I first opened it, looking to give an author I’d offended another chance. Then the hot and cold embarrassment when I read the dedication and his dig about fixing the lights. All nicely rounded out by bone-deep mortification when I – against my own protests – read the one interview that Declan Archer gave with a hot new book blog.

‘He came in the same week Gran went into Glenhaven,’ I admit to Yumi, trying to ignore the twisting in my stomach. ‘Jamie had just broken up with me and it was . . . not a great day. I was in a bad mood.’

Yumi gasps theatrically. ‘What? You?’

‘Do you want me to tell you this story, or not?’ The urge to be done talking about it is strong.

Yumi mimes zipping her lips shut, her eyes laughing.

‘Declan came in and he was all attractive and arrogant and sure of himself.’ I rub my forehead. ‘And I maybe happened to tell him that his book skills could use some work. I mean, allegedly.’

And there are my four semesters of law really paying off.

‘How attractive are we talking?’ asks Yumi.

I look up. ‘Seriously? That’s your takeaway?’

‘I don’t understand how that’s not your takeaway,’ says Yumi. ‘Also: you’re an idiot. I mean, not for saying what you did – even though, knowing you, you probably beat yourself up over it – I mean you’re an idiot for not telling everyone about it.’

‘What?’ I lean back in my beanbag to study her, but the angle is worse because now I can see Declan’s smug face on the back cover.

‘Clarrie – people are obsessed with this book.’ She pulls out her phone. ‘Siri, search talking to trees bookseller dedication.’

There’s a beat of taut silence, and part of me is almost waiting for the bell above the door to ring and break it. Yumi scans the phone, and when she holds the screen up to me, her eyes are almost as smug as Declan’s.

‘Look.’ She jabs her other finger at it. ‘There are literally forums dedicated to working out who the dedication is about. Declan even referenced it in the one interview he did. You are famous. To, you know, the smallish but passionate group of people following everything about this book.’

I’m shaking my head before she’s even finished talking.

‘You know what Declan said in that interview with Read, Repeat, right?’ I make myself say like it doesn’t matter, swallowing down the bile in my throat.

Yumi waves a hand, still looking at her phone. ‘It’s irrelevant,’ she tells me.

‘Tessa Dalton asked him how the bookseller had responded to the dedication, and Declan said he thought she was “probably still stumbling around in the dark”.’ My voice almost catches on the last word, and I curse myself for letting it get to me again. It’s stupid. So stupid. But, somehow, his words managed to pierce their way to the centre of my insecurities, rip the heart out of them and display them for the world to see. And no matter how much I tell myself that it’s not a big deal, every time I see the cover of his book, all I can see is him laughing at me.

Yumi looks up, searching my eyes with hers. She holds up her phone. ‘Even so, half these weirdos on the internet argue that you are the bookseller who inspired Declan Archer. You’re this handsome and mostly reclusive author’s muse. According to Treesaremyjam66, Declan made that comment in the interview because of “pent up sexual tension”.’ She frowns at her phone, her eyes scanning the text. ‘Actually, some of this is kind of gross.’

I just keep shaking my head. Then Yumi’s eyes soften and I know that no matter how invested she is in Declan Archer chat, she hasn’t for a second forgotten the earlier part of the conversation.

‘I know your parents are pressuring you to sell,’ she says.

My throat feels thick. Mum and Dad have always been so disparaging about me taking over the bookshop that I usually try not to talk to them about it. But then a couple of weeks ago at my brother Ben’s birthday dinner I accidentally let it slip that the lights had been shorting more frequently, and they haven’t let me forget.

‘I’m not saying you have to want to be famous,’ she continues. ‘But this could give us a publicity boost. It could keep your dream alive.’

I don’t correct her. Don’t tell her that what sticks in my gut more than anything is that maybe Declan Archer was right about me stumbling in the dark. When Gran first suggested that I run Brooks’, it was like a lifeline. I’d just left a law degree I hated, I had no way to pay rent and I had no idea what I wanted to do next. Brooks’ had always felt safe and warm, and the idea of building Gran’s dream alongside her felt like the first meaningful thing I’d done in years. I didn’t know if it was permanent, but Gran told me that was okay, that it was all going to be okay. And, like an idiot, I believed her.

But I can’t afford to dream. It’s taking everything I have just to stop hers from falling apart.

‘Just think about it?’ says Yumi.

‘Call the electrician you know for me tomorrow?’ I counter, out of pride more than anything. Yumi just grins.



Thanks to a terrible night’s sleep that may or may not have been plagued by dreams of Declan Archer, I’m not feeling great on my walk into work the next morning.

There are a few people waiting outside, which is unusual but not unheard of. They’re all watching me as I walk up to the front step and search my too-big bag for my keys. One of them has a cap pulled low over his eyes. He looks up and my heart stops in my chest.

Declan Archer?

I freeze for half a second, my gaze locked on his. Stupidly, all I can think is that his eyes are green. I force myself to take a step forward – to do what, I don’t know – but then someone walks between us, and by the time they’ve passed he’s gone.

Or he was never there in the first place.

Someone coughs beside me, jolting me back to myself. I’m imagining things. A lack of sleep and the stress of talking about the dedication with Yumi yesterday are making my brain insert Declan Archer into a scene where he doesn’t belong.

I shove my hand into my bag to hide the fact that it’s shaking, and in the first good news of the morning I find my keys almost immediately. I mentally beg them to be kind to me today, exhaling in relief when the right key slides smoothly into the lock. I’m about to push the door open in a way that is both triumphant and nonchalant, when someone behind me speaks.

‘Are you Clarence Brooks?’

There are only three people who call me Clarence: Annabel Stone, the man from the gym who calls once a month to politely ask if I’d like to reinstate my membership and my mother.

I turn round to see a woman about my age looking back at me. Her skin is smooth and glowing, like she actually knows which skincare products she should use, her hair is in the kind of chic messy bun that I aspire to but can never achieve and she has a pen tucked through the top.

She is not my mother, or Annabel Stone, or Mark from Fitness First. And there’s something about her smile that makes me uneasy.

‘Yes?’ I say, hoping that my lack of confidence in whether or not I’m Clarence Brooks might make her give up and leave.

She doesn’t.

‘Excellent. I’m Elizabeth.’ That’s it. That’s all she says.

Who introduces themselves with just their first name?

I mean, most people, probably. But it’s not very helpful for rapidly getting basic and possibly unreliable information on the internet about someone.

There’s silence as I open the door to the bookshop.

I walk in slowly, my key-related success all but forgotten. I’m ready to close the door behind me to indicate that we’re not open yet, but Elizabeth somehow slips through the gap.

‘Sorry, I’ll be with you in just a few minutes,’ I tell her as the other customers filter in behind her, and I’m hoping a meteor hits the earth before the time is up.

She nods. ‘That’s no problem,’ she says. ‘I’m just browsing for now.’

It’s the ‘for now’ that worries me.

I drop my things out in the kitchenette and rapidly google ‘Elizabeth’ on my phone, just in case. But, despite her smooth skin and great bun, unfortunately this Elizabeth is not in the world’s top ten. I splash my face with water and stop short of giving myself a pep talk, because I learned the hard way that sound travels from here to the shelves. The last thing I need is for the entire bookshop to hear me talking to myself again.

I take a breath, square my pointy shoulders and walk back out into the bookshop.

Elizabeth is studying the shelves by the door, but she turns to smile when I come back in.

‘Wonderful bookshop you’ve got here,’ she says.

I think she might genuinely mean the words. But then she follows them up with these: ‘I’m just not sure why you don’t have Declan Archer’s book displayed up front. He’s a local, you know.’

It’s the same question so many people have asked in the last few days, but there’s something about the way she says the words that makes cold trickle down my spine. I have a sudden awful premonition that something is about to happen. And, like a freight train hurtling its way along the tracks, there is not a single damn thing I can do to stop it.

Still, I can damned well try. I look absentmindedly at the shelves. ‘There’s a large display down the back,’ I say, cool and calm like a cucumber. ‘And Declan’s book is doing very well for itself already.’ Elizabeth raises her eyebrows at me and I know my cheeks start to flush. Some cucumber. ‘We have many talented local authors,’ I add. ‘I think it’s important to give all of them shelf space.’

‘I understand,’ she replies smoothly. I look away, busying myself in the hope she might leave, but I can sense her gaze fixed on me.

‘Is there something else I can do for you?’ I ask her, adopting a polite but firm voice I’m pretty sure I’ve borrowed from my mother. ‘I’m rather busy this morning.’

Elizabeth looks around the shop, empty but for one of the men who was waiting outside earlier. Her eyes are gleaming more than her beautiful skin, and she leans f. . .