The Bookman's Tale A Novel of Obsession [Paperback]

A mysterious portrait ignites an antiquarian bookseller’s search through time and the works of Shakespeare for his lost love. Charlie Lovett’s new book, The Lost Book of the Grail, is now available.

Guaranteed to capture the hearts of everyone who truly loves books,The Bookman’s Taleis a former bookseller’s sparkling novel and a delightful exploration of one of literature’s most tantalizing mysteries with echoes ofShadow of the Windand A.S. Byatt'sPossession.

Nine months after the death of his beloved wife Amanda left him shattered, Peter Byerly, a young antiquarian bookseller, relocates from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to outrun his grief and rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, he discovers a Victorian watercolor of a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Amanda.
 
Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins and braves a host of dangers to follow a trail of clues back across the centuries—all the way to Shakespeare’s time and a priceless literary artifact that could prove, once and for all, the truth about the Bard’s real identity.“With THE BOOKMAN’S TALE, Charlie Lovett tells us a terrific story—there’s mystery and suspense, murder and seduction—but more important, he shows us how it’s all connected, all of this: the reading and the keeping and the sharing of books. It forms a chain long and strange enough to tie a heartbroken young scholar from North Carolina back to the Bard himself, who might or might not have been William Shakespeare. Every link along the way is a bookman’s tale all its own, and Lovett tells them all, except the very last, of course: because that’s you, about to read this book right now.”—Robin Sloan,lc+