A.J. Fikry owns and operates Island Books on Alice Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. He is a recent widower who tends to drink himself into multiple stupors, after hours. As a result, he loses a valuable book. And as a second result, someone leaves him a special gift that changes his life and gives it new meaning. I won't spoil the surprise by revealing what the gift is.

Living and working on an island means that the local community is close at hand and is quite real. A.J.'s wife was a native of Alice Island, and she had been the person that A.J. had relied on. Now he starts to assemble a few friends on his own: ones that he can count on for a bit of personal support. Police Chief Lambiase is one of them. A.J.'s sister-in-law Ismay is another.

This story is made complete by a nice selection of interesting island-bound and off-island characters. Again, I won't give away any crucial details. Maybe the gift to A.J. was a gift to the whole island.

In some respects, this story reminds me of The Lost & Found Bookshop, written by Susan Wiggs. Its shop is located at the opposite edge of the country, in San Francisco, yet some parts of its plot resemble this one. With bookstores as their main settings, they are sure to stand on common ground.

Avid readers seem to love to pick up stories about bookstores. It is the dream-devoutly-to-be-wished by many to work in a bookstore, or to own one, and/or to live above one. Bibliophiles should also love the many author and book title references that are woven into the dialogue and the narration here. It is as if the characters are speaking in a secret code that only a select population can understand. And yet, we DO understand. Each chapter begins with one of A.J.'s short story reviews, which often reveal his wry sense of humor. When he addresses "The Tell-Tale Heart," we learn that the bookseller once planned to write a dissertation "on depictions of disease" in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. (Boy, wouldn't THAT be a page-turner.) Perhaps we should be thankful that he dropped out of grad school to follow his wife to her hometown so that they could open their own business. "A place is not really a place without a bookstore," she told him. And thus began the tale of Island Books.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is the kind of book you can read in one weekend, or even on one deliciously rainy day. It offers a captivating set of circumstances involving relatable characters. Readers may feel comfortable joining the Alice Island residents for a few hours of their time. It may even seem as if it truly is possible to hop on the ferry in Hyannis in order to reach and to visit this fictional island. Alas, both the place and the bookstore are real only on the printed page and in our imaginations.