The geek is back in his hometown, building a tech superstore in the historic district, threatening the lively-hood of the bookshop owner. They might need to meet in the middle to keep both the techie stuff and the old fashioned paper books. ( )

Passions and books fly when a technophobe falls for a games mogul

First, an apology! I have to apologise to all Romance writers for dismissing the genre as the literary equivalent of painting by numbers. Sorry, guys. Having enjoyed this book so much, I realise it was pure intellectual snobbery that made me pass by anything tagged as a Romance without a second look. Mea culpa.

I was drawn to this by the combination of a rare bookshop owner (what joy!) and a games designer who, in his spare time, turns out of print books into ebooks. For someone with walls full of books, a huge Kindle library and a hobby of turning OP books into Kindle books, it was irresistible!

The story takes place in the Louisiana city of Natchitoches, birthplace of the two lead characters, and is rich in detail of the Creole culture which Alice, the bookshop owner, is desperate to defend against the dumbing down, bland uniformity, generated, as she thinks, by technology. Enter our hero Paul under the cloak, or rather the fedora, of Browning Wordsworth Keats - the pseudonym under which he runs his website where lovers of classic literature can feed their passion. Alice and BWK begin to fall for each other via email, but what will happen when she meets Paul, the evil purveyor of technology?

Well, I’m not going to tell you - spoilers! You’ll just have to read the book :-)

These are characters well worth investing your time in.

By the way if the fact that the book is described as ‘Christian’ puts you off - don’t be. There is no preachiness or pushing of the Bible or Christianity.

I plan to read more by this author. Highly recommended. ( )

What a lovely book!

Definitely a 5-star read. Excellent characters, great scenery descriptions (I could smell the musty old books when they were mentioned), and a good, clean story. Thanks for writing it!

If you enjoy a little romance between two people with some mystery thrown in for good measure, this is a book for you. I practically read it straight through. ( )

This book has a lot of similarities to the movie, "You've Got Mail." But the movie is funnier than this book. It's a good read. A clean read. Great for Christians to pick up without a worry in the world. But I feel that this book lacks humor. The two characters, Paul and Alice, are clean-cut folks, but they have a different vision for this Louisiana town. While I like the characters,I feel that Ms. Hathaway could have beefed up the story with some humor, sarcasm, and wit. The use of poetry is great, but it shouldn't have to be the only thing they do in their communication. ( )

I was trawling the free ebooks on goodreads searching for something to read and was disheartened by the selection available(horror, vampires, paranormal etc) I definitely was looking for something other than this when I found this book. I read it in 2 days!

It definitely helps that I'm a big fan of Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell and similar. The plot line for this book reminded me of the film "You've Got Mail" which is referenced in the book. I really enjoyed reading it and will seek further books by this author writing under several mysterious pen names.

Extremely readable, especially for period classics fans and those who love the period drama adaptations on TV. The dig at modern technology with the various quotes under the chapter headings was a nice touch too. I highly recommend to all those who would rather be living in a by-gone era and for those who just want something less gruesome and more wholesome than the current market seems to provide. ( )