Reviewed by Gayle Williams
Sarah Clutton’s The Bookshop of Buried Pasts is a beautifully crafted exploration of love, loss, hope, and the long shadows cast by secrets buried across six decades. The narrative moves seamlessly from 1960s Cambridgeshire to the present‑day NSW Southern Highlands, and finally to the windswept shores of the Shetland Islands, creating a rich sense of place and history.
At the heart of the novel is octogenarian Phyllida Banks, beloved bookshop owner and the emotional anchor of her family and community. When Phyllida attempts to take her own life “on a perfect day,” she leaves behind a note for her granddaughter Lottie — along with a cascade of unanswered questions. Tasked with Phyllida’s enigmatic instruction to “find Francis,” Lottie must unravel a past her grandmother never spoke of. What she uncovers reshapes the family’s understanding of itself. But who is the elusive Francis? How does this mystery connect to the unsolved murder of an English lord half a century earlier? And what really happened to Dorothea?
Clutton populates the novel with a cast of warm, distinctive characters whose lives intersect with Phyllida’s in both expected and surprising ways. From a humble country town in NSW to the rarefied world of English aristocracy, she positions the reader to appreciate how the choices of the past inevitably shape the future.
Told through a non‑linear, multi‑perspective structure, the novel alternates between past and present, inviting the reader to piece together the truth alongside the characters. Notably, the bookshop itself narrates the Prologue and Epilogue in a first‑person object voice — a bold stylistic choice that adds charm and deepens the atmosphere of mystery. Despite the title, there are in fact three bookshops bearing the same name, each holding its own secrets.
While the novel grapples with the consequences of long‑held silence, it is equally a story about the endurance of love across generations. Clutton’s portrayal of strong, independent women is particularly compelling, and their resilience forms the backbone of the narrative.
The title alone drew me in — I can never resist a musty old bookshop or a well‑constructed mystery — and Clutton delivers on both fronts.
Highly recommended for readers who enjoy an intelligent, emotionally layered family drama with a satisfying thread of sleuthing woven through.
The Bookshop of Buried Pasts
by Sarah Clutton
2026
Allen & Unwin
ISBN 978 1 76147 148 3
$34.99; 384pp