With Love from London

In Jio’s (Flowers in Paris) newest, a librarian, a bookstore, and mother-daughter relationships take center stage. Valentina’s journey is familiar, yet delightful, as she leaves a life dedicated to an undeserving person to a life dedicated to herself. Along the way she discovers why her mother, Eloise, abandoned her. Book lovers will especially enjoy the way reading is integral to Valentina’s and Eloise’s lives, and librarians may particularly love the demonstrations of readers’ advisory skills tucked around their missions to start and save a bookstore. Aside from the bookstore plot, both women learn to find the power to follow their dreams—and perhaps find love along the way. Narrators Gabrielle Glaister and Brittany Pressley are pleasant and voice their main characters convincingly and sympathetically. Unfortunately, moving between point-of-view chapters makes it seem as if the past in the novel moves at a much slower pace than the present, since the narrators perform at noticeably different speeds. Additionally, both narrators voiced characters with accents in a manner that seemed off.