In this star-crossed short story from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman, timing is everything as two sisters learn to let love follow its own path.

Isabel, the long-lost Gibson sister, is finally back home on Brinkley’s Island, Maine. With Sophie and Violet, her sister and her niece, she’s got the family bookstore—and with Johnny Lenox, she’s got something even more special.

But even as life settles, not everything is falling into place. Isabel and Johnny have set the date three times, baked three wedding cakes, invited the whole island to three parties, only to have each attempt at matrimony fall apart at the last minute. Disasters seem to be conspiring against their happy ending, and Isabel is starting to wonder if their love is meant to be.

When family history comes back to haunt the Gibson sisters, Isabel knows that if she wants to make it down the aisle with Johnny, first she and Sophie will have to face the pain of their past and their present, and decide what it means for their future.

My Review

The Bookstore Wedding is the follow up to The Bookstore Sisters. Again it’s a short story about sisters Isabel and Sophie. Isabel has returned to Brinkley’s Island, Maine, where she plans to reunite with her sister after falling out ten years ago when she moved to New York.

And then there’s the bookstore and Isabel’s relationship with past love Johnny Lenox. But life is never simple. Three attempts at marriage have failed due to external circumstances – it seems that they are destined never to tie the knot. And there were a lot of cakes wasted (not that cake is ever really wasted). Then another setback befalls the sisters and it seems like history is repeating itself.

Alice Hoffman is one of my all time favourite authors (The Museum of Extraordinary Things being one of my favourite all time books) and I love her short stories. She writes in such a magical way – even when there is no magic involved – and has a way with words that is both entrancing and often whimsical. I’m looking forward to the third book in the Once Upon a Time Bookshop series.

About the Author

Alice Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The World That We Knew, The Rules of Magic, The Marriage of Opposites, Practical Magic, The Red Garden, the Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, and The Dovekeepers. Her most recent novel is Magic Lessons. She lives near Boston.