She was not the only shopkeeper to have taken Primrose Hill Books up on their beneficence. With so few open buildings available in the bombed-out city, word spread among the booksellers of Paternoster Row, and five additional sellers had a shelf devoted to their store, including Smith’s. Grace fashioned small newspaper birds to adorn their designated space and rotated books from each seller along with Primrose Hill Books’ own stock for her afternoon readings. Soon the customers in the shop were not only those they knew from their own store, but from the other booksellers as well.

Jimmy attended her readings still, the orphan well-fed now and with properly fitting, clean clothes, with little Sarah in tow, which made Mrs. Weatherford enormously happy. The people who listened to Grace read at the tube station also continued to come, along with several of their friends and the owners of other bookshops along with their patrons.

The offer to give space to the other stores had helped not only the booksellers, but inadvertently benefited Primrose Hill Books by keeping their stock from being depleted too quickly. Not only was Simpkin Marshalls no longer able to provide books, but finding a new supplier had been difficult with the paper ration on. What’s more, customers who came in to support other sellers often purchased an item from their shop as well.

Grace wrote to George about Paternoster Row and how Primrose Hill Books had become such a popular place for readers to linger in discussion of literature. Hearing their conversations made her miss him terribly, to long for the ease with which he so eloquently described books and enticed her with new story plots. He expressed an eagerness to attend the shop upon his next visit to London, which he hoped would be in the next several months.

I long to be among the familiarity of Primrose Hill Books again, he’d confessed. Where the literary conversations are ubiquitous and a particularly beautiful assistant brings stories to life with her lovely voice.

It had warmed her heart to read those words. And yet the idea of reading in front of him made her anxious as well, the same as the first time she read aloud in the tube station.

Viv’s letters had also been brimming with anticipation, especially since her duty station would be shifting to London in several months as she was being considered for a new assignment she couldn’t elaborate on. Her exuberance lit the entirety of the letter and had Grace eager to see her friend once more.

One rare, quiet morning at the bookshop, Mr. Evans was at the counter tallying up a row of numbers in his ledger. “You told me once I was a good teacher.” He set the pencil in the spine and glanced up at Grace. “Well, I want you to know I’ve learned a good bit from you as well.”