The Lonely Hearts Book Club


 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Lucy Gilmore Cover and internal design © 2023 by Sourcebooks Cover illustration and design by Sandra Chiu Internal images © Yulya Bortulyova/Getty Images Internal design by Tara Jaggers/Sourcebooks Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book. Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410 (630) 961-3900 sourcebooks.com Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress. Contents Front Cover Title Page Copyright SLOANE 1 2 3 4 5 6 MAISEY 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 MATEO 16 17 18 19 20 21 GREG 22 23 24 25 26 27 ARTHUR 28 29 30 31 32 SLOANE 33 34 35 Reading Group Guide About the Author Back Cover This one’s for Mary. Arthur and Sloane belong as much to you as they do to me. “All things great are wound up with all things little.” —Anne of Green Gables SLOANE 1 The day I met Arthur McLachlan was perfectly ordinary. I woke up at my usual hour. I ate my usual bowl of oatmeal while hunched over the last few pages of my library copy of Parable of the Sower. I can’t remember what I wore, but I’m pretty sure it was both machine washable and designed for comfort. Everything in my closet was machine washable and designed for comfort, but not by choice. Rule number one of being a librarian: You’ll leave work every day looking like you waged battle with a league of ancient scribes. Adapt early and adapt often, or your dry-cleaning bills will bury you. When Arthur first came barreling into my life, I was in the Fiction section restocking a bunch of titles someone had moved for the sake of internet kudos. There was a new TikTok trend going around where people descended on bookstores and public libraries in order to write out sentences using titles. If you ignored the part where I was the one who had to put everything back where it belonged, it was kind of clever. Looking for Alaska Where the Sidewalk Ends We Were Liars Under the Never Sky Are You Anybody? I Am No One I was still chuckling over that last one when I heard the sound of an annoyed cough behind me. “Young lady, you are blocking the way to Roman History.” Years of practice had me immediately stepping back, an apology on my lips. As I pushed my cart aside, I noticed the man was elderly, his wire glasses perched on the end of his nose and his tweed jacket sporting a pair of suede elbow patches. He walked with the aid of a gold-tipped cane that looked as though it might conceal a sword stick inside. “Do you want me to look up a specific title for you?” I asked, since he had some way to go to reach the nonfiction shelves. “Anything by Tom Holland is good, but I find I prefer to get my history from Mary Beard. Her approach is wonderfully emotional.” He snorted. “Typical sentimental claptrap.” I blinked at him, wondering what I could have said to cause offense. “I’m…sorry?” He tapped his cane sharply. “Emotion doesn’t belong in history. Emotion belongs in maudlin childhood literature. You should know that, Pollyanna.” I was taken aback but not dismayed by the belligerence in his tone. Strange though it seemed, we had actual library rules about patrons like this. Soothe and disarm, that was the order of the day. Leave them in a better frame of mind than when they arrived. And never, under any circumstances, engage. “You don’t have to read anything you don’t want to,” I said with a careful smile. “But my name isn’t Pollyanna. It’s Sloane.” Instead of accepting my peace offering, Arthur tilted his head and appraised me. Something about the intelligent gray eyes behind his rims caught my attention. “You know what I meant,” he said, stabbing a finger at my cart. Sure enough, a copy of Eleanor Porter’s beloved childhood tale sat on the top. One of the teens had had the audacity to pair it with John Grisham’s A Time to Kill. I held both books up with a laugh. “Don’t blame me,” I said. “It’s A Time to Kill Pollyanna.” He looked pained. “It’s a joke,” I explained. “Kids trying to make sentences out of book titles. Some of them are actually pretty good. Maybe I should try my hand at it next time I run into a patron.” In an attempt to defuse the tension, I said the first title that came to mind. “Pollyanna is Pleased to Meet You.” “Those kids are a plague on the public library system,” he said, glaring. “And so, I’m starting to think, are you.” I had no response for this. Well, to be fair, I had one, but I knew better than to voice it aloud. One of my greatest skills in this world—some might say it was my only skill—was how good I was at being inoffensive. The trick was to look bland, act blander, and voice no opinions whatsoever. The looking bland part I had down pat, my frizzy brown hair and lightly freckled skin blending into the background so easily that I sometimes felt like a potted ficus. The acting part was