The Bookbinder's Secret

I love a good Historical Fiction story with secrets and a bit of mystery and The Bookbinder's Secret looked like it fit the bill. 

The premise of The Bookbinder's Secret, which is set in the very early 1900's in Oxford, follows Lily Delaney, a young bookbinder who finds mysterious handwritten pages hidden inside old books. She learns there are more books in the series, and she puts her life in danger to collect them all, becoming more and more obsessed to learn more about the mystery surrounding forbidden lovers. 

The premise sounded great and so many readers loved this book, but I’m sad to report that I am an outlier with this book. I struggled to be pulled into this story from the get go. I didn't connect with the slowly paced story or the main character and thought the author adding their name as the author of the book within the story was a bit strange. Lily’s obsession with these letters was over the top and the unnecessary love triangle and repetitive feel made this a very slow read.  

Points for atmosphere and bookish backdrop, but this unfortunately was a miss for me. 

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to St Martin's Press for the complimentary digital advanced copy of this book that was given to me in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 2.5 stars

Author: A.D Bell

Genre: Historical Mystery

Type and Source: ebook from publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: St Martin's Press

First Published: January 13, 2026

Read: Dec 14-23, 2025

Book Description from GoodReads: Every book tells a story. This one tells a secret.

A young bookbinder begins a hunt for the truth when a confession hidden beneath the binding of a burned book reveals a story of forbidden love, lost fortune, and murder.

Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father’s failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man’s profession. But when she’s given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a fifty-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune, and murder.

Lily is pulled into the mystery of the young lovers, a story of forbidden love, and discovers there are more books and more hidden pages telling their story. Lilian becomes obsessed with the story but she is not the only one looking for the remaining books and what began as a diverting intrigue quickly becomes a very dangerous pursuit.

Lily's search leads her from the eccentric booksellers of London to the private libraries of unscrupulous collectors and the dusty archives of society papers, deep into the heart of the mystery. But with sinister forces closing in, willing to do anything for the books, Lilian’s world begins to fall apart and she must decide if uncovering the truth is worth the risk to her own life.