My notes for Alice Hoffman’s short story, “The Bookstore Sisters”, are almost as long as the story itself. It’s the first of three stories in the Once Upon a Time Bookshop series involving two sisters and the Once Upon a Time Bookshop on Brinkley’s Island, Maine. And, every word of the story is as magical as the fairy tale world that Isabel Gibson once loved.

“She was good at forgetting. She had practiced for years, and it was now a skill at which she excelled.” After her mother’s death when Isabel was twelve, she quit reading her beloved fairy tales and only wanted to escape the family home, bookstore, and the island. Her older sister, Sophie, wanted to stay, even after their father, and then Sophie’s husband, died. The two haven’t spoken in a dozen years when Isabel receives a note that only says, “Help.”

It’s Sophie’s eleven-year-old daughter, Violet, who is standing on the dock with a sign that says, “Help.” Her mother had an accident, and Violet turned to the only person she knew of, although she had never met her. There’s anger and resentment between the two sisters, but Sophie isn’t going to flee this time.

Instead, she bakes from her mother’s recipes, Feel Better in the Morning cupcakes, and Sin No More Cinnamon Rolls. And, somehow, Isabel Gibson finds magic in the island and the bookshop.

This is a short story that takes less than an hour to read. But, Alice Hoffman manages to develop her characters better in those brief pages than many authors do in entire books. Sisters and fairy tale magic and bookstores and an island. That’s “The Bookstore Sisters”.

NOTE: “The Bookstore Sisters” is currently free through Kindle Unlimited on Amazon, and only there because it is an Amazon Original Story. The second in the series, “The Bookstore Wedding”, was just released this week, and is also free. The stories do stand alone, but the third story, “The Bookstore Keepers”, will be released February 4.