Title: The Lamplighter’s Bookshop
Author: Sophie Austin
Dates read: 06/03/25 – 11/12/25
Rating ⭐️.5 (1.5 stars)

Publisher: Harper360
Number of pages: 368
Fiction or non-fiction: fiction
Subject or genre: historical, romance

Book blurb:

The Lost Bookshop meets The Lost Apothecary in a beguiling novel full of secrets…In the shadowy aisles of The Lamplighter’s Bookshop, secrets lie as thick as the dust…

When Evelyn Seaton answers an advertisement for an assistant at a forgotten bookshop in York, she is not the only one with something to hide.

There she meets the enigmatic and prickly William Morton, an aspiring writer keeping secrets of his own. But when the walls of Evelyn’s carefully built defences start to crumble, there is only one person she can turn to.

As the layers are brushed away, Can Evelyn and William find the courage to write the next chapter of their story?

How I discovered or acquired this book:It was my Amazon First Reads pick back in like February

My thoughts:The Lamplighters Bookshop had a premise I was genuinely excited about, but almost nothing in the execution worked for me.

For a book marketed as The Lost Bookshop meets The Lost Apothecary, it delivered neither the cosy bookish charm nor the atmospheric mystery those comparisons promise. What I got instead was a scattered narrative and a cast of characters I actively disliked.

The supposed “rivals to lovers” plotline was the biggest disappointment. There was neither rivalry nor romance. Evelyn and William spend so little time together that their connection never has the slightest chance to develop. One of the side couples had more chemistry and emotional payoff than the main pairing, which says everything.

Evelyn’s storyline was overloaded with conflict:
– endless family drama
– unresolved issues with Nathaniel
– her feud with Lady Violet
– constant financial troubles

All of that left no room for the bookshop, no room for the romance, and barely any room for coherent character growth. The narrative felt disjointed and overstuffed, like five different books competing for space, none of them landing properly.

And then the ending… oh, the ending.
Everything suddenly resolves in the last twenty pages, wrapped up so neatly, so conveniently, and so unbelievably that my eyes rolled into the stratosphere. All that build-up, all that chaos, all that mess — swept away in a tidy bow that wasn’t earned at all.

A great concept executed poorly, with a frustrating plot and flat characters.
A very solid 1.5 stars.