The Battle of the Bookshops

By Poppy Alexander
** Publication Date 19 August 2025 **
​4 stars


I think owning a bookshop by the seashore would be a lovely way to spend my life. Being able to live above said bookshop? Even better. 


Jules grew up in the town of Portneath, where her dear Aunt Flo owned Capelthorne Books. Aunt Flo is just the latest to caretake the amazing small bookshop which has been in Portneath for nearly 100 years. When Jules’s mother Maggie leaves her a message that she must come home immediately due to Aunt Flo’s demise, Jules panics. After all, Aunt Flo was more of a mother/grandmother to Jules than her own mother Maggie. 


In London, Jules works for a small publishing house with an evil headmaster. When Jules asks for a bit of time off to tend to her elderly aunt, her boss will not comply. Furthermore, she essentially tells Jules, be here Monday morning or don’t come back at all. Jules is owed the time off. Family is family however, and Jules is not going to put her job ahead of her loved ones needing her.


Turns out that Aunt Flo definitely did need her, but her demise was seriously exaggerated. In any case, now Jules is home. She realizes how old and frail Aunt Flo is, and that it is her turn to be there for Aunt Flo. Jules goes about getting Aunt Flo settled downstairs and taking over the running of the bookshop.


Until an empty building across the street is unveiled to be another bookshop! Even worse, it is owned by the Montbeau’s eldest, Roman. The Montbeaus and Capelthornes have a longstanding feud. It goes back to a drunken card game some 100 years ago, but it is still going strong. 


Roman is a beautiful man, and Jules is once again smitten, other than her disdain for the family and now the bookshop. Yet, when the two are forced together over and over again, it becomes clear that maybe it’s time to let the feud die with the previous generation. 


Excellent read. Quick, cute, boy and girl enemy trope. Still I loved the play on the Montagues and Capulets with not only the names but the plot. The Capelthorne bookshop sounds like a dream of a place, and there are so many side stories in this novel to keep you enchanted. The characters are very likable, even enemy Roman. I could read about these two again and again. Or even the whole town. Portneath is a place I’d love to inhabit.