The Bookseller

The Bookseller
Cynthia Swanson
Harper Collins Publishers
New York, New York
ISBN: 978-0-06-233300-1
Hardcover
2015
$ 25.99
339 pages

"My whole life, in these dreams, turns on an event that happened eight years ago."
Rene Descartes stated "I think, therefore I am."   Does that mean then, if you can think of an existence, it exists?  
That is the problem for Kitty Miller.   She is an old maid, thirty-eight years old, never married, and part owner of a bookstore.  Her life is consistent from day to day.  It is safe.    She is fairly content with her life until she begins to dream.
Each night these dreams place her in an alternate reality where she is Katharyn Andersson, wife and mother of triplets. During the day she is the bookseller Kitty.   Every night when the dreams begin, more of her life as Katharyn continues.  Living two lives can be exhausting. 
It all ted eight years ago. Kitty responded to a "lonely hearts"  ad in a local Denver newspaper.   She was to meet a young architect, Lars Andersson but he never showed up at the restaurant.   So why is she dreaming of her life with Lars when in reality they never met?    So how is it in her dreams that he sweeps her off her feet into another life? 
Kitty's days are fairly calm but Katharyn's nights as a wife and mother of triplets with  one having special needs can be overwhelming.
How could she be married to this man?  Who are these children?  Will Kitty/Katharyn be happy?   Will she know what is real and what is a dream?
Author Cynthia Swanson has published short fiction and even was a Pushcart Prize nominee with her story 13th Moon. The Bookseller is her first novel.
The Bookseller in an intricately engaging novel forcing the reader to question reality and to begin to wonder whether Kitty/Katharyn in schizophrenic.   The characterization is phenomenal with the reader feeling and reacting along this journey.   This is an outstanding page turner that is aimed at a female audience but a story strong enough and engrossing, that all adult readers would enjoy this book.
The Bookseller blurs the lines between sanity and insanity, between dreams and reality.