The Telephone Box Library by Rachael Lucas

I should begin by saying the title is a misnomer. The story is not about the Telephone Box Library. The final scenes include it, and the telephone box itself features prominently in reminiscences by the older population. It actually becomes a talked-about topic only halfway into the narrative. I spent a long time waiting for it to take centre stage, but it never did, and I lost a little bit of time resetting my thought process. If you go in not expecting to see it that way, you will definitely enjoy it more!

Lucy is an overworked teacher who still considers teaching her calling. She has always been the responsible one, the sensible one and that led to her eventual collapse due to exhaustion. I can clearly imagine such a situation for a History teacher who loves her job. She moves to a small cottage in a village close to Bletchley Park and thinks about starting a project to put something together. She meets some interesting characters in her village and bonds with them over a lot of things. It is a heartfelt tale, and I actually feel it had enough content to be split into two books. I would have liked it more if that had been the case. Time flies pretty quickly when Lucy gets busy, her next-door neighbour gives her her diary from when she worked for the Government, and an old story comes to light, even it is only for Lucy to know and not share.

The writing was pretty good, and there are a lot of sub-plots so you can choose different characters to root for. The writing was pretty great, and I would definitely read another of the author’s works.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but this review was entirely based on my own reading experience.