June 27, 2022
In Sampson’s amiable latest (after The Last Chance Library), bookkeeper Libby Nichols is thrown a curveball by her live-in boyfriend and boss. Simon, declaring their life has become too “predictable,” dumps Libby, putting her out of a job. She moves from Surrey to London to help her sister with childcare in exchange for a place to live. On Libby’s first day in the city, she meets Frank, an elderly man who’s been riding the bus for 60 years looking to reconnect with the woman of his dreams. She had written her name and number on a bus ticket, which Frank lost, and he’s spent his days since looking for her. Libby teams up with Dylan, a mohawked punk and Frank’s caregiver, to search for the red-haired woman of Frank’s memory as his dementia worsens. Joining in the search are quirky characters whose lives Frank has touched over the years and who want to pay him back. In the meantime, Simon resurfaces with surprises of his own and Libby has to decide what she wants out of her life. Despite some predictable turns and beats, there’s plenty of tension. This will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Hayley Steed, Madeleine Milburn Literary.
July 1, 2022
Frank Weiss met a red-haired artist on the 88 bus in London in 1962, and promptly lost her number. Sixty years later and in the early stages of dementia, he rides the 88 route, hoping to run into her again. Red-haired Libby is fresh off a breakup with nothing to do but babysit her nephew. One day on the bus, she sketches a punk with a mohawk hairdo, who promptly turns around and yells at her. When Libby meets Frank, she feels compelled to find his lost (potential) love, and Frank insists she enlist the help of his carer--who turns out to be the punk. Dylan thinks Libby's idea to plaster the route with missed-connection signs is a bad one, but he helps anyway. As they work, they meet people whose lives Frank has touched, while Frank faces the fact that he may not be able to live independently anymore. As she did in The Last Chance Library (2021), Sampson corrals a cast of misfits for a common cause, resulting in a funny, sweet, tearjerker of a tale.
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