Review by Booklist Review
Eddie Winston is a 90-year-old retired academic who now works happily at the Heart Trust Charity Shop in Birmingham, England. He squirrels away treasures that to anyone else look like trash, such as letters and photos, holding on to them in case someone comes looking. When a pink-haired young woman donates a box of journals and drawn-on sneakers, Eddie knows they don't belong in the garbage. He strikes up a friendship with the woman, Bella, a clerk at Sainsbury's who is mourning the death of her boyfriend. Bella is shocked to learn that Eddie has never been kissed, and she makes it her mission to find him love. But Eddie had found love; it just was a matter of bad timing. The tale unfolds in present-day narratives, letters Bella writes to her late boyfriend, and the seemingly unconnected story of an unhappily married woman in the 1960s. Cronin (The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, 2021) blends real-feeling characters and several emotionally rich plot lines in this British charmer that is a powerfully sweet ode to human connection in all forms.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
British writer Cronin (The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot) serves up an enjoyable story of an unlikely friendship forged at a Birmingham thrift store. Eddie Winston, a 90-year-old store employee, meets Bella, 24, when she comes in with a donation of clothes left by her late boyfriend, Jake, whose death a year earlier she still hasn't recovered from. The pair hit it off and soon get together for lunch in a local park. When Bella learns Eddie has never been kissed, she makes it her mission to help him find love, and signs him up for dating apps. But Eddie still pines for Birdie, the wife of a philandering professor at the university where he taught in the 1960s. Despite their strong mutual attraction, both Eddie and Birdie respected her wedding vows. As the narrative builds toward a sweet finale, Cronin flexes her deadpan wit, particularly in scenes where Bella encourages Eddie to take risks ("Bella promises that if I do die," Eddie narrates before joining her on a roller coaster, "she will help the ride operator to drag my body off the ride and throw it into the sea and then they will call the authorities and say that I fell off the pier while clutching my chest"). It's a winning tale of second chances. (Dec.)
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