The Last Page by Katie Holt Review: A Cozy Bookshop Romance
Some romance novels arrive packaged like comfort food, and you can usually spot them a mile off. The Last Page by Katie Holt sits firmly in that category, with all the cozy markers you’d expect: a charming West Village bookshop, a sharp-tongued bookseller heroine, a fish-out-of-water hero, and a slow burn paced like a Sunday afternoon at the register. What sets it apart from the bookish romance crowd is less the structure and more the texture. Holt, who once worked at The Strand and clearly drained every ounce of that experience onto the page, builds a setting so specific and so lovingly detailed that the store itself becomes the third lead. A Premise You’ve Met Before, Dressed Up Beautifully Carmella “Ella” Sanchez has spent most of her life inside The Last Page, the kind of independent bookstore where her first kiss happened in women’s health and a college boyfriend dumped her next to Tina Fey’s Bossypants. Leo Martin, the owner, treated her like a granddaughter and quietly groomed her to take the store over. When …
