Love from Lexie

Abandoned by her mother, Lexie feels lost despite living with kindly foster parents and a feisty foster sister, Bex who takes her under her wing.   She still hopes to find her mother and often writes to her, the letters remaining unanswered.

After finding a lost tortoise in her street Lexie realises she is drawn towards helping other lost souls and noticing there are many children who don’t quite fit in at school decides to set up a club together with her friend Happi and Bex as she understands how her friends have helped her.    They arrange the meeting in the local library as the friendly librarian, Miss Walker, has offered them the space and Lexie has used the library as a refuge in the past.  But when the school troublemaker turns up with his friends under the misapprehension that they are there to audition for a band – Lost and Found – everything turns on its head and Lexie soon realises a band might be a great way to pull everyone in.  Lexie discovers she has a talent for song writing and the disparate group of misfits find they have musical talents aplenty.  Lexie also begins to fall for the notorious lead guitarist, Marley, even though she knows he is bad news.   Just when the group are beginning to find their feet the library is threatened with closure and they all rally round as a team to fight the decision enlisting the help of a charismatic local painter Miss Winter to fight their cause.

Touching on issues such as mental health, bullying and domestic violence in a light handed and never didactic way this is a story bursting with positivity and the power of friendship.   Lexie is a wonderfully drawn character, by turns vulnerable yet with an inner strength that comes to the fore in activating the community sprit needed to fight the library closures.  She has a real heart of gold despite her traumatic start in life and you cannot help but root for her.  This is a perfectly pitched feel-good novel that is also a paean to libraries and librarians everywhere.