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“You are married to a wise woman, Mr. Hastings.”

“That I am.” He grinned, then pointed to the drawing before us. “The idea is to rebuild the front of the service counter to hold shelves and bins and move the sweets there. Mrs. Hastings feels they’ll be more tempting front and center, especially for the children.”

He glanced up with a glint in his eye. “That’s where you tried to move them that day, remember? Perhaps you were on to something.” He waved to the shelves before us, sweeping his arm in a long motion from the top tinned vegetables to the bottom tinned meats. “Once we get the sweets situated, move everything here to those shelves in the front of the store, and we’ll remake this corner to hold the bookshop.”

I stepped back to take in the customer service counter, a massive wooden structure with adverts pinned to the customer-facing side. There was room for what he envisioned. It was a good plan. “Won’t creating shelves and adding glass cases into this counter cost a great deal?”

Mr. Hastings’s eyes sparkled. “Mrs. Hastings had a good suggestion concerning that too.” He leaned close. “Mr. Dunn’s account is well overdue. Pressing him does no good as I doubt he can pay so much. But he’s a master carpenter. Seems to me he might be very pleased to trade work for a cleared account.”

I grinned, nodded, and practically hugged the man. That was the moment I truly believed Great Rollright could become home.

Nothing more was said as the shop’s little brass bell danced on its blue string that morning, and we welcomed our first patron of the day into Hastings General Store. With his slight soft-shoed shuffle, Mr. Hastings headed to greet and help the two women, so bundled against the cold I couldn’t recall their names, and I started paging through publishers’ catalogs and planning the inventory.

And now the books are here!

I push off the crate and reach for the crowbar hanging on the back wall. I set to work on the crate’s fastenings, and not ten minutes later, my eye catches upon the first book: The Big Four by Agatha Christie. I bite my lip against a giggle. She’s here! The Queen of Crime. Well, one of them at least. After a little digging, I pull out the rest: Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh. More authors are here too: Josephine Tey, G. K. Chesterton. Then I come to the Americans: Frances Crane, Dashiell Hammett, and Hillary Waugh—all three of his pseudonyms—and more . . .

Unwrapping and pulling out each book is like greeting an old friend. Dorothy Sayers once said through her character Lord Peter Wimsey, “Books are like lobster shells . . . we grow out of ’em.” But I have not found that to be true. We don’t grow out of the stories we read; we grow through them. Even in rereading them, they point to our earlier selves and show us how we’ve grown from that first meeting and those first experiences. Yet we never leave them behind. They become part of us—the armor with which we wrap ourselves tight or the foundation upon which we stand. After all, as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot always asserted, overtly or obliquely, we carry our backgrounds with us. Everything that happens forms us to one degree or another.

And, thank goodness, at least in stories, the endings are wrapped up neatly, and readers can turn out their lights knowing that right has prevailed and all is well in the world. At least that’s true in mysteries, my favorite genre. Bad things happen—the primary one being murder, of course—but the mystery novel always ends with the sun shining once again and with a few characters walking away whole and happy. Not all, mind you. Sacrifices must be made, even by—perhaps especially by—the main characters themselves.

I pull out a copy of Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown and hold it close for a moment, letting myself drift back to our first meeting. It was in Goathland, the small village in Yorkshire to which I’d been sent for the war.

“This is for you, child.” Mr. Thumbolt, the Garringses’ neighbor to the east, handed me the novel the day after I helped him realize his mare hadn’t been stolen but had broken out of his north pasture herself. To me, the blood drops on the shattered wood and deep hoof grooves in the soft ground told the story. And the farmer just beyond the rise confirmed his stallion had received a nighttime visitor.

“You keep paying attention and using that fine brain of yours, and you’ll be as wise as this detective someday. You’ve got the same name, too, though you’ll not be becoming a Catholic priest, mind you.” He chortled and patted me on the head. It took me a few more years to understand what he meant.

I set down The Innocence of Father Brown and reach for the book beneath it, Sayers’s Gaudy Night, and practically swoon with the anticipation of reading Wimsey and Vane’s love story again. I rest it on one of the growing stacks around me and press on.

Soon one hundred books sit poised before me, ready to be inventoried and shelved. How splendid! A good variety of leather-bound books in deep, rich colors with embossed titles and gilded edges, an even stronger showing of hardbacks with freshly printed dust jackets and lower prices, and a fair number of the new and tiny Pocket Books for the thrifty or for those like me who simply like to have a book near at all times.

I push myself up off the floor and swipe the dust from my navy wool slacks, glad I wore them to dust the bottom shelves this morning. I pull a new ledger from the desk drawer, sit on the chair, and start to record my inventory. The shop’s inventory, I mean. Mr. and Mrs. Hastings’s inventory. But it feels like mine too. My own venture. My own little corner bookshop. Something I can point to and feel pride in and say, “I did that. And I did it well.”

My eye hits upon Christie’s Taken at the Flood, and after checking it against the shipping receipt and adding it to the inventory ledger, I make myself a note to put money in the till to pay for it. My first sale. To me. For Peggy.

It isn’t a classic Christie as it was published only two years ago and the paperback edition just came out last year, but it’s a good story. One that raised all sorts of questions when I first read it, and I’ve been longing to chat with someone about it.

“Such a good book.”

I startle at the high, clear voice near and above me.

“I’m sorry, Gemma. I thought you heard us come in.” Mr. Hastings stands only a foot away with the most glamorous woman I’ve ever seen close up. Not the most beautiful—though this woman with her burnished gold hair pulled back in a chignon is undoubtedly beautiful—but the most glamorous. She wears a royal-blue dress, matching coat, and heels that might have just stepped off the cover of Vogue. She perfectly portrays the “New Look,” but not as a copy, the real thing, I am certain of it. Handcrafted by Christian Dior himself in this year’s new narrower silhouettes.

“I came in for chocolates and heard you’re setting up a bookstore.” She smiles down at me.

Scrabbling to stand as rapidly as possible, I end up losing my balance and stumble backwards as the chair tips. She reaches out a gloved hand, but I stop myself before bringing her or Mr. Hastings down with me. One hand gestures to the book I’m still clutching.

“I thoroughly enjoyed that one. Will it be for sale?”

“Yes.” I lift the book towards her, but she waves it away.

“Later. I can wait until your corner is up and running.” She turns back to Mr. Hastings. “Another clever move on your part, David.”

“Not mine, my lady. This is all Miss Brown.” He gestures to me. “Lady Marchmont, I’m happy to introduce you to my assistant, Gemma Brown.”

The woman offers her gloved hand. I take it in some awkward shaking motion, all the while wondering if I’m supposed to curtsy. Luckily, just as I start to wobble down, she looks away, to the book piles scattered across the floor.

Her eyes capture mine again. “It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Brown, and it seems you have your work cut out for you. Will you be open for business tomorrow?”