Charlie Lovett: The Bookman’s Tale (January 2025)

Peter Byerly, an antiquarian book dealer, is a young American widower trying to piece his life back together after the death of his much loved wife, Amanda.

He is staying at the couple’s second home in the U.K near Hay-on-Wye when he discovers a Victorian watercolour portrait within the pages of an antique book that bears an extraordinary resemblance to Amanda.

Intrigued, he seeks to find the identity of both the artist and the subject of the painting. In his quest, he also happens upon the Holy Grail of English literature; a manuscript that absolutely confirms that Shakespeare was the true author of his work. Some people firmly believe that Shakespeare was not sufficiently well-educated or erudite to have written his plays.

The book is set in three alternating timelines: Peter’s current occupation keeping the manuscript safe and having it authenticated, the story of Peter and Amanda’s life together and the history of the manuscript over the centuries with all the surrounding intrigue, various rogues, thieves and forgers. In present time the story turns into a thriller with Peter and his new accomplice, Liz, becoming caught in the middle of a long and bitter feud between two families which began with a scandal and blackmail, greed and acquisitiveness.

All is resolved neatly and the stories tie together. As readers we generally accept coincidences in a novel, but felt that in this instance credulity was rather stretched. There was one suggestion of an element of the supernatural. Perhaps the couple were unconsciously drawn to buy a  second home in this particular place because of her historical connection to it?

“There are more things in heaven and earth….”

We enjoyed the history and the real life characters that were included in the book and all the details about antiquarian books, forgery and restoration, the way the manuscript was lost, stolen, hidden, nearly destroyed and rescued and would have preferred much more of that and much less of the love story between Peter and Amanda.

We found the romantic writing style concerned with that aspect too flowery and felt that some editing would have been helpful.

The premise was good and the writer is clearly very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his subject.

We awarded The Bookman’s Tale 3/5