The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts by Annie Darling

Where happy ever after is only a page away…
A delightful new series set in a quaint old bookshop, for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan
Once upon a time in a crumbling London bookshop, Posy Morland spent her life lost in the pages of her favourite romantic novels.
So when Bookend’s eccentric owner, Lavinia, dies and leaves the shop to Posy, she must put down her books and join the real world. Because Posy hasn’t just inherited an ailing business, but also the unwelcome attentions of Lavinia’s grandson, Sebastian, AKA The Rudest Man In London™.
Posy has a cunning plan and six months to transform Bookends into the bookshop of her dreams – if only Sebastian would leave her alone to get on with it. As Posy and her friends fight to save their beloved bookshop, Posy’s drawn into a battle of wills with Sebastian, about whom she’s started to have some rather feverish fantasies…
Like her favourite romantic heroines, will she get her happy ever after too?

Lisa's Review - 3 out of 5 stars 

Owning a bookshop is like every bookworms dream come true, including me, so to have a book handed to me about a young woman who is left a bookshop sounded like it was going to be right up my street!

Posy works in Bookends, a quirky little bookshop owned by Lavinia. Not only does she work there, she also lives in the flat above with her younger brother Sam, since their parents passed away. Promising her parents she would look after Posy and Sam when they passed away, Bookends is left to Posy when Lavinia also dies. But there's hard work to come for Posy as the shop is failing, and she needs to come up with an ingenious idea to turn it around and keep the bailiffs - and Lavinias eccentric grandson Sebastian - at bay. 

I really hoped that I would love this book, but I found Posy a lacklustre character who just seemed to need a kick up the bum all the way through the book. And then there was Sebastian, with the title of The Rudest Man in London. He was quite possibly one of the most irritating lead male characters in a romance boom I have ever come across and he annoyed me all the way through! 

Give them their dues, a couple of chapters towards the end of the book and I started to change my opinion of them both, when Posy started to deal with her demons and Sebastian came to his senses but I think the damage was too far on to repair, and I wish their characters had started to strengthen earlier on and I might have enjoyed the book a bit more. 

I also didn't really enjoy when Posy began to write her own fantasies down - I know the book is all about romance but even her writing was so old fashioned and drab it bored me! It all then led to a rather predictable outcome with Sebastian. 

I also wasn't really a huge fan of the ending but I don't want to give it away. It just left me asking 'Really?!' Out loud several times! 

Take the relationship between Posy and Sebastian out of the book and I quite enjoyed everything else, and Posys battle to try and save Bookends.