Spotlight & Giveaway: The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Lucy Gilmore’s new release: The Lonely Hearts Book Club

A young librarian and an old curmudgeon forge the unlikeliest of friendships in this charming, feel-good novel about one misfit book club and the lives (and loves) it changed along the way.

 
Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely…but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane’s day that when Arthur doesn’t show up one morning, she’s instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another.

Anxious, Sloane tracks the old man down only to discover him all but bedridden…and desperately struggling to hide how happy he is to see her. Wanting to bring more cheer into Arthur’s gloomy life, Sloane creates an impromptu book club. Slowly, the lonely misfits of their sleepy town begin to find each other, and in their book club, find the joy of unlikely friendship. Because as it turns out, everyone has a special book in their heart—and a reason to get lost (and eventually found) within the pages.

Books have a way of bringing even the loneliest of souls together…

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Lonely Hearts Book Club 

“Well?” he demanded. “Don’t you have anything else to say?”
I shrugged, wishing—not for the first time—that I was more like my sister, Emily. She’d have known exactly how to wrap a grouchy old man like this around her finger. I don’t know if it was all the doctors she grew up around or just her natural charm, but she’d had a way of making even the meanest grumps do her bidding. Before she’d gotten too sick to roam the neighborhood with me, we used to visit an ice cream shop a few blocks away from our house. No matter how many fingerprints we left on the glass or how exasperated the shopkeeper got with all our requests for free samples, she always walked out of there with at least one extra scoop.
What would Emily do?
“We could probably incorporate some Roman history, if it helps,” I said, thinking of the towering ice cream cones Emily used to carry home with her. She’d never been able to eat the whole thing, but that hadn’t been the point. It had been the triumph of it she’d enjoyed. In all the years since I’d lost her, I hadn’t triumphed over anything.
Or anyone. Not even myself.
Before I could think the better of it, I reached for a copy of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and held it up. “How about Beloved Pagans and Christians? You have to admit, it’s catchy.”
I could have almost sworn that Arthur’s nostrils flared to twice their size. “So that’s how you want to play this, huh?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to play much of anything, but I was already in too deep at that point. There was no ice cream at the end of this particular rainbow, but I couldn’t help feeling that Emily would have been proud of me all the same.
“The Roman Triumph Of Mice and Men?” I suggested, thinking up Roman history titles as quickly as I could. Inspiration struck, and I snapped my fingers. “Oh! I know. I, Claudius, Journey to the End of the Night. These are good. I should probably write them down.”
Something almost like respect was starting to spark in Arthur’s eyes. “You seem to know an awful lot about books on ancient Rome,” he said grudgingly. “Why? Are you planning to stab someone in the back?”
This time, I didn’t hesitate over my reply. “Only if he deserves it.”
A sound somewhere between a bark and a laugh escaped him. “Is that your way of telling me that Caesar got what was coming to him? Is that what it says in your precious Mary Beard?”
“Not exactly,” I was forced to admit.
If this conversation kept going along these lines, I was going to have to admit a lot more: namely, that I wasn’t nearly as conversant with Roman history as I was letting on. As far as librarians went, I was more of a jill-of-all-trades than a deep scholar. I knew lots of random book titles and could recite the first line from almost every classic piece of literature, but I could only talk intelligently on a subject for about three minutes before my storehouse of knowledge petered out.
“Ha!” he practically shouted. “That’s what I thought. You don’t know anything about Caesar that isn’t written in the back-cover copy somewhere.”
This was the point where I should have bowed gracefully out of the conversation. I’d already broken all the rules about not antagonizing the patrons, disorganized my own library cart, and said unthinkable things to a man who was old enough to be my grandfather.
For the first time in my life, however, I didn’t bow out. Strangely enough, it didn’t even occur to me to try.
“That’s not true,” I said as I pushed the copy of Pollyanna back on the shelf where it belonged. “I just think that anyone who had as many enemies as Caesar did should’ve been more careful. If he didn’t see that knife coming, that’s on him. My only enemy is the copier by the south window, and even I know better than to believe it when it says the toner levels are totally fine.”
That was when it happened. I wasn’t a good enough writer to describe it, but it was as if Arthur decided, right then and there, that I was an adversary worth having.
“I’ve forgotten more about Roman history than you’ll ever know,” he said, pointing his cane at me.
“That’s probably true,” I admitted.
“And I’ve already read every word Mary Beard has ever written.”
“That’s…impressive,” I said.
He didn’t appear to find my return to meekness to his taste. With suddenly narrowed eyes, he added, “And when I want book recommendations from a second-rate Pollyanna who wouldn’t know a good book if it landed in her lap, I’ll ask for it.”
This barb stung more than he realized. Finding pleasure in reading—losing myself in a story—was the one thing I did know.
“The Art of Racing in the Rain,” I said.
He blinked and took a step back, as if even the title of such—what had he called it? Sentimental claptrap?—had the power to harm him. Like a vampire fleeing Van Helsing, my only weapon of choice was an uplifting story from the point of view of a dog. “What did you just say to me?”
I wore a smile that was only partially faked. He couldn’t have been more outraged if I’d told him we were holding a book-burning party down by the lake that made our little city famous.
“If you’re looking for a book recommendation, I think you should pick up The Art of Racing in the Rain. It’s what I suggest to all our regular patrons. I know it has a reputation for being sad, but—”
The spark in his eyes grew almost martial. “Not now. Not ever. Not if it was the only book left I the world. If I wanted to immerse myself in someone else’s pointlessly self-indulgent drivel, I’d give in and listen to podcasts.”
I kept my mouth shut. It just so happened that I loved that book. I loved podcasts, too, though that was mostly because I never cared for sitting alone in a silent apartment. There are these really fun ones of people reading classic books in a flat monotone to help you go to sleep. You haven’t known true peace until you’ve drifted off to Proust read aloud in B-flat.
Arthur took himself off after that, muttering under his breath about Roman conquests and literary abominations and librarians who should know when to keep their uninformed opinions to themselves.
And all I could do was smile after him, feeling like I’d eaten a dozen scoops of ice cream.
“I can’t believe you just tackled Arthur McLachlan and lived to tell the tale,” a deep, rich voice said from behind me. I turned to find Mateo, my fellow librarian, watching me with a detached look of awe.
I’d always liked Mateo. Everyone did. His voice made him seem like he should be seven feet tall, but he was as slight of build and limb as I was. Add to that a boy-band swoop of inky black hair and a willingness to laugh at everything—including himself—and it was impossible not to enjoy his company.
“You know who that guy is, right?” Mateo asked.
“No,” I said, my brow furrowed as I watched the gold-tipped cane and elbow patches disappear into the German Philosophy section. “Should I? I’ve never seen him here before.”
“That’s because he comes first thing in the morning and only lets Octavia help him. He says everyone else here drains his brain cells by proximity.” Mateo clucked his tongue. “You never open, so you’ve never seen him reduce the staff to terrified goo. We usually have to keep a mop handy.”
I thought about that spark in the old man’s eyes that only intensified when I started to push back, and shook my head. “He’s not that bad. A little curmudgeonly, maybe, but—”
“Yeah, right,” Mateo interrupted. “Mark Twain was a curmudgeon. Ebenezer Scrooge is a curmudgeon. Arthur McLachlan is Satan’s grandfather. One time, he even managed to eke a tear or two out of Octavia. He’s that bad.”
“Really?”
This was a more sinister warning than Mateo realized. Of all of us on staff at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library, Octavia was the best—and the fiercest. Mateo found himself employed here because this was as far from working in a hospital as he could physically get, and I was here because reading was my only real life skill, but Octavia was hard-core. She’d been a librarian for more years than I’d been on this earth, and I was pretty sure she had the Dewey decimal system memorized. As in, all of it.
You know that thing when people come into a library and asked for a blue book with weird writing on the cover? She always knew the exact book they were talking about. Without fail. Someday, I was going to grow up and be her.
“Take it from me, Sloane,” Mateo said. He eyed me up and down, sympathy in every sweep of that gaze. “If you want to keep this job, you’ll stay far away from him. He’ll tear you to pieces…and worse, he’ll enjoy every second of it.”

Excerpt. ©Lucy Gilmore. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 Print copy of The Lonely Hearts Book Club . US only

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Meet the Author:

Lucy Gilmore is a celebrated novelist in a wide range of genres, including literary fiction, contemporary romance, and cozy mystery. She began her reading (and writing) career as an English literature major and ended as a book lover without all those pesky academic papers attached.
Visit her online at www.LucyGilmore.com