Shauna Robinson follows up her debut novel, MUST LOVE BOOKS, with THE BANNED BOOKSHOP OF MAGGIE BANKS, a tale of finding your genre, yourself and your purpose.

After a surprising layoff, Maggie Banks has stalled out. Living with her well-meaning but daunting parents, she feels like she can’t find her “thing,” the career path that will fulfill and pay her and make her care about waking up every day. Everyone around her has found theirs, and she fears that she’s falling behind.

So when Maggie’s best friend, Rochelle, asks her to run the family bookstore while she is out on maternity leave --- and live in Rochelle's house at the same time --- it feels like an offer Maggie can’t refuse. And besides, when you haven’t found your passion yet, how hard can managing a bookstore be, even if you don’t like it? But when Maggie arrives in Bell River and takes the scenic path to Cobblestone Books, she notices something odd: the entire town is devoted to and obsessed with Edward Bell, a famous literary figure who allegedly wrote the first feminist novel. Is she walking into a cult?

"THE BANNED BOOKSHOP OF MAGGIE BANKS is absolute balm for anyone who has ever struggled to find themselves, love their favorite genres out loud, or build community around them."

Upon her arrival at Rochelle’s store, Maggie quickly rules out any cults, but the setup of the town is definitely odd: a descendent of Edward Bell seems to own --- and rule, with an iron fist --- nearly every establishment in town, from the bookstore to the café to the B&B. As a result, everything from the snacks to the decor is set to Bell’s time period…including, tragically, the books Rochelle is allowed to sell at Cobblestone. This means that they sell no books published after 1968, when Bell died, and anything that released before then must be deemed a “literary classic” to be sold. Keen-eyed readers will quickly note that this eliminates a lot of diverse authors, including female, Black and queer writers. Sure, it’s weird, but as a tourist town, Bell River needs its gimmick to survive, and Maggie is hardly the right person to judge.

Never much of a reader, Maggie decides that she might as well try Bell’s books, especially since she’ll need to be able to give readers his biography as well as answer any questions…as long as they present him in a flattering light. But while she expects to be somewhat bored, instead she is shocked: not only is the ending of the book a total wash, it’s explicitly anti-feminist, or at least what any woman would quickly identify as anti-feminist. She also realizes that the store only caters to tourists, while locals looking for romance, thriller or sci-fi books must head out of town to Barnes & Noble.

It doesn’t take a business major to acknowledge that this is an incredibly limited business model, which is where Maggie, an expert at thinking --- and living --- outside the box comes in. She sneakily stocks Cobblestone with popular, modern-day books and then starts a mixed-classics book club that operates during the store’s off-hours. Before she realizes it, Maggie is not only putting down roots but also finding her calling…and a romance that inspires her to be more than she has ever believed herself to be.

However, the pseudo-owner of the town has a secret about Bell’s history, and he’ll stop at nothing to make sure it stays that way. The future of his hold on the town and, frankly, the livelihood of the locals who have made their living working at tourist traps depends on it. But when does championing and remembering the past become stopping the future? And can the past and present ever coexist? Maggie is about to find out, one banned book at a time.

THE BANNED BOOKSHOP OF MAGGIE BANKS is absolute balm for anyone who has ever struggled to find themselves, love their favorite genres out loud, or build community around them. On top of the book love, though, is a plain good story about coming of age (even later in life!), finding what you’re good at and turning it into what makes you happy. I really cannot remember the last time a book made me so excited to keep reading, expand my TBR list and visit my local bookstore ASAP.

Whether you are in a reading slump, a life slump or simply in need of a pitch-perfect, feel-good story, this is the book for you. While it’s not necessary to have read MUST LOVE BOOKS first, I do highly recommend it, as watching Shauna Robinson fine-tune her craft and ignite the book lover in all of us is worth every page.