


Every time the author writes a new story, I am waiting for the little link between her characters, because there is always one somewhere, only a sentence, or a name, but it is enough to make me satisfied. Another great surprise was once again the mention of a character from one of Jae’s previous books, Jenna Blake. I loved the fact that both protagonists hold a certain animosity against the other at first, which made the romantic part of the book come in as a great surprise. It almost feels as if she knows them privately before she writes about them. Her characters are as usual loveable, mysterious and with a complexity rarely seen in books. Paper Love is another great success from Jae. The details are so well written that writing on a paper could almost feel like an intimate action.

I remember in the middle of April, Jae had asked her followers on Twitter: How many of us still use pen and paper? Back then I thought I knew what my answer was but after reading Paper Love, I find myself mysteriously wishing to buy an expensive refillable pen and try my hand at writing on a quality paper. Will their many late nights working be enough to save Paper Love? With Anja’s knowledge of the stationery world and Suzanne’s ability to handle the digital one, once united, they are a force not to reckon with. What starts as an impossible working relationship between two strong-willed women, turns into a great complicity to save what is left of Uncle Norbert’s store. Anja Lamm a stationery geek, who has been a loyal employee of Paper Love for many years, feels threatened when the digital-loving ice queen Frau Wolff sets her now-wet foot in the store and starts looking through the business in detail, making suggestions that could cost her job. Reluctant at first to help yet another family member to maintain their business open, she gets more than she bargained for when she gets her foot wet in the Bächle next to her uncle’s store on her first day. Once the news is out, she gets forcibly asked by her mother to help her uncle try to save his stationery store business. Paper Love is the story of Suzanne, who just quit her job as a business consultant, mostly because she felt she would never get her potential recognized in the sexist environment she worked at. Who thought writing with a pen could get as intense as it gets in Jae’s latest novel Paper Love?
