Ivy Lane

After years of slogging her guts out for nothing at a PR company, Libby Quinn finds herself redundant and about to plough every last penny of her savings into refurbishing a ramshackle shop and making her dream of owning her own bookshop become a reality. She hopes opening Once Upon a Book on Ivy Lane will be the perfect tribute to her beloved grandfather who instilled a love of reading and books in her from an early age.

Jo Campbell is perfectly content in a perfectly structured life. Nothing ever changes in Jo’s life and she likes it that way. Or at least, she tells herself she does. Most of the time, she manages to push down the tiny voice that tells her to chase her dream and maybe, just maybe, open her battered and bruised heart up to love. But to chase her dreams she needs to take chances that are way out of her comfort zone and learn to not put other people’s happiness above her own. Most of all she has to learn to trust her heart, which may just be the biggest challenge of all.

Erin Donohue would describe herself as happy. Well, maybe not exactly happy...but not unhappy either. For the most part she loves her job as Head Chef at The Ivy Inn, working alongside bestfriend, Jo and making a home with boyfriend Aaron. Things are going just fine. Or so she thinks.... After a tough shift, Erin returns home to be greeted by silence. There is no trace of Aaron or his belongings. In that split second her whole life and world are turned upside down. It seems Aaron has exited the building and her life.

Becca Burnside isn’t sure where it all went wrong. How did she end up single in her forties, with the highlight of her weekend being a trip to Big Asda with her mum and the only chance of cuddles coming from her dog? It’s fair to say that Becca’s life isn’t quite where she’d hoped it would be. She already knew that, deep down, but when she finds the time capsule she and her friends made as teenagers and remembers the hopes and dreams sixteen-year-old Becki (with an i) had for the future, she knows she has to do something, and fast.