Excerpt from This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

One

January
BOOK LANE RECOMMENDS
BOOKS TO READ WHEN YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE READING
Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books, Cathy Rentzenbrink
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Tilly and the Bookwanderers, Anna James
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna

The right book in the hands of the right person at exactly the right moment can change their life forever. At least, that's what Alfie has always believed. It's hard not to when you spend six days a week in a bookstore and have witnessed more times than you can count the magic of someone entering your shop as one person and leaving with the possibility of becoming another held in paper between their palms.

But Alfie isn't thinking about changing lives when he pulls up outside Book Lane on his battered red bicycle early that January morning. He's thinking about the fact that his glasses are misted with rain, his trousers are drenched, and there are three enormous and very soggy cardboard boxes waiting for him on the doorstep.

"Bloody books," he mumbles under his breath as he digs about in the pockets of his bottle-green duffle coat for his keys.

"Bloody door." The key sticks as it always does before finally creaking open, letting a gust of cold wind and the disheveled bookseller into the shop.

Alfie drags the deliveries out of the rain and scoops up the post, flicking through the assortment of bills and dumping them on his desk with a sigh. Closing the shop in the quiet period between Christmas and the New Year had felt like a good idea at the time. But now Alfie has only an hour to go until opening and a whole carpet of pine needles to sweep, several boxes of books to unpack, and a window display to change, swapping festive romances and comforting cookbooks for healthy recipe books and self-help manuals.

People are always telling Alfie that he has the best job in the world. But what they think being a bookseller entails-reading all day-and what it actually involves are quite different. They'd be surprised by just how much heavy lifting and dusting is involved.

A scratching sound draws Alfie's attention to the back door.

"Happy New Year. It's just us this morning, Georgie," he says as the cat flap swings open and the furry, mottled gray face of the neighborhood's stray appears in the opening.

Georgette shakes the rain from her fur and hops onto a pile of special-edition Jane Austens on the counter, settling herself and watching with a faintly judgmental expression as Alfie gets to work.

Eventually, with the display refreshed, the radiators clicking, lamps glowing cozily, and the nutty smell of fresh coffee in the air, Alfie looks around, satisfied. Even after all this time he can't help but feel a stirring of anticipation as the shop awaits its customers, books waiting patiently for covers to be stroked, pages to be flicked through, and selections to be made.

Just as he is about to open up, his attention falls on the Book Lover's Calendar that was a Christmas gift from a customer and is pinned to the shop noticeboard, open on the New Year and illustrated with an image of a woman reading in a pool of lamplight. Today's date is circled in red, the words "PHONE NIGHTINGALE" written in capital letters. He glances at the shelf that is reserved for books ready for collection. For once it is empty apart from one solitary book wrapped in brown paper and tied with ribbon. It has sat there for a long time, unmoving as a rotation of titles came and went around it.

"What a way to start the year."

Sweeping a scattering of paperwork to one side on his desk unearths a leather-bound book the size of a particularly comprehensive dictionary. Alfie flicks through the crinkled pages until he finds the number he needs. As he picks up the phone, he thinks back to the promise he made over a year ago. He had almost forgotten that this day would eventually arrive. That he'd have to make this call.

Excerpted from This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page. Copyright © 2026 by Libby Page. Excerpted by permission of Berkley Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.