When they broke apart, Jack was standing at Grace’s side with his hands jammed in the pockets of his overalls. “Begging your pardon, but we need your approval on something.”
Grace shook her head, overcome with affection and appreciation for the effort so many had gone through, not only with her shop, but for making her feel so valued. She followed him outside where two men in working overalls waited, weary and paint-smeared. They held a large beam of wood lengthwise between them.
“We know the bookshop is Primrose Hill Books,” Jack said. “But we all thought this seemed more appropriate for the time being, given the circumstances.”
He nodded and the men flipped over the board, revealing a painted sign, reading The Last Bookshop in London.
Grace laughed, giddy with love and friendship and joy. It was indeed a perfect name, and she knew Mr. Evans would agree if he was still alive.
“It’s brilliant,” she said. “With one small modification. If I may?”
Jack lifted his brows in amusement, and Mrs. Kittering brought over a pot of paint and a brush. Grace wrote in a small, cursive script beneath the beautiful title, “All welcome.”
“Well done, Grace.” Mrs. Weatherford clapped her hands.
“Wait—one more thing.” Before anyone could stop him, Jimmy ran forward and plucked the brush from the pot. He turned around, blocking what he’d written and stepped aside with a cheeky grin.
Below Grace’s welcome to all was a roughly scrawled statement, defiantly proclaiming, “Except Hitler.”
They all had a fine laugh at that while the men put the new sign above the door to the shop.
Sarah tugged at Grace’s skirt.
“What is it, dearest?” she asked of the child.
Sarah gazed up at her, bright blue eyes imploring. “Will you read to us now?”
But it wasn’t only Sarah who looked at Grace with expectation, so did everyone else, tired but eager.
“Nothing would make me happier.” Grace led them all to the glossy black door. “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to The Last Bookshop in London.”
Amid the cheer that rose up, she led them into the store where she took her place on the second step up. She hesitated a moment there, scanning all the faces who had made not only the bookshop whole, but also her heart. Her gaze flicked to the history section where Mr. Evans had often sequestered himself, and for a fleeting moment she felt him then as surely as if he truly was there.
She smiled through her tears, opened her book and began to read, bringing them all along with her to a world where there were no bombs. There might be loss, and sometimes there may be fear, but there was also courage to face such challenges.
For in a world such as theirs, with people of spirit and love, and with so many different tales of strength and victory to inspire, there would always be hope.
EPILOGUE
JUNE 1945
Farringdon Station was filled with soldiers and civilians, the latter of whom had arrived in their best clothes, which wasn’t saying much with the ration of clothing that had been going on for several years. Grace was no different as she waited in a blue dress with a dusting of small white flowers along a hem that had begun to fade.
She didn’t often leave the bookshop, especially not when it had become so busy. While “The Last Bookshop in London” had great sentiment behind it, she had officially renamed the shop to Evans & Bennett, now painted on a robin’s egg blue sign which hung over the doorway. The store had maintained a strong following through the war, with most she considered more friend than patron. Today, however, was worth having Jimmy mind the shop in her absence.
He’d become a talented assistant, eager to help and almost as voracious a reader as Grace. It wasn’t uncommon for him to slip off between the shelves to lose himself into a story. The act reminded her so much of Mr. Evans that she couldn’t bring herself to reprimand him.
Grace checked her watch, the luminescent paint flecks on the small ticking hands, once so integral to her former position as an ARP warden, were a greenish white in the daylight. At night, however, it had served her well through many air raids.
Five minutes until three.
That fateful night when Primrose Hill Books had fallen and Evans & Bennett rose from her ashes was the last of the Blitz on London. Bombings still had happened from time to time through the next four years until finally just last month on May 8, 1945, when the war came to an end.
The celebration had been tremendous. Couples danced in the streets, people pushed up their trousers and held up skirts to splash through fountains, grocers spilled open their reserves of sugar and bacon, neighbors came together to enjoy a feast they hadn’t seen in years and the anti-aircraft spotlights, which once hunted their enemy in the skies, now swirled over the clouds in victory.