My next book on the library holds list was The Last Chance Library, by Freya Sampson, and I’m happy to report that I am now two for two (two good reads in a row) for 2026.

This was Sampson’s debut novel, and it might be my favorite. I hate to be predictable, but I do love a book about books. I don’t, however, always love books about libraries and librarians, for the simple reason that the authors don’t do their research to understand what role is filled by degreed librarians as opposed to assistants, circulation staff, shelvers, etc. But Freya Sampson is among the few who get it absolutely right. She acknowledges the need for a degree in order to be a librarian, she describes the duties of her main character, June, a library assistant, perfectly and consistently, and no one ever calls June “the librarian.” She hasn’t had the requisite schooling to be acknowledged as a librarian, and the lines in this book are always clear. That may sound elitist to those who are not librarians, but as someone who worked hard for two years to get my masters degree in order to be one, it’s so demoralizing when anyone who has a job at the library is assumed to possess the same abilities. It would be like going to your lawyer’s office and believing that everyone working there must be a lawyer, or that the people who staff the reception desk at your doctor’s office are qualified to diagnose.

Anyway…with that out of the way, let me say that this was a delightful book, although not as lighthearted as some of hers. Sampson has a gift for characterization that makes the plot situations believable and engrossing. You like (or dislike) these people, you get to know them pretty thoroughly, and you therefore invest in their circumstances. Despite the fact that the characters may fall into standard categories—curmudgeonly old lady, nosy neighbor, old friend turned love interest, etc.—Sampson fleshes them out so that you don’t mind the use of a common trope.

In this case, the protagonist, June, has been a library assistant at a rundown stand-alone library in a small town since she started there part-time as a teenager. She is now 28 years old, and seems frozen in place; her mother, who was the librarian for most of June’s life, died of cancer eight years ago, and since then June’s life has turned into a predictable round of work, frozen lasagna or takeout, and reading. She gave up all thought of college when her mother got sick, staying home to nurse her, and now she lives in the house in which she grew up, and has changed nothing since her mother passed. She has no friends and relies on library patrons for any form of human contact, but retreats into her silent solitude whenever she isn’t shelving books or helping seniors log into their email accounts on the library computers. In a word, she’s stuck.

She is also almost debilitatingly shy, so nothing seems likely to change—until outside circumstances interrupt her cycle. The local council has signified that they will be considering closing up to six libraries in her town, Chalcot, and five other adjacent townships, due to budget cuts, and replacing them with a once-a-week visit from a bookmobile. The regular patrons of the library are immediately up in arms and ready to do whatever is necessary to save their library, but June is told by her boss that as an employee she is forbidden from participating in any of these activities. June unhappily acquiesces, but a chance comment from someone new in her life causes her to think of ways she can subvert this order and help keep her beloved library open.

There is a nice incipient romance in this book but, as with Sampson’s other books, it isn’t the dominating theme; that is more nuanced, and brings insight to various aspects of the human condition and the best ways in which we interact when important issues are on the line. I really enjoyed this and read it in two days. Sampson’s books couldn’t be considered “literature,” but they are certainly good stories that provoke both feelings and reactions. I will continue to read them.