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From: Benjamin Norwood
To: Scarlett O’1
Subject: I’m glad this book has an owner
Dear Scarlett,
First, I must say thank you. Thank you for giving me the gift of a finely crafted story. My sister discovered your copy of The Shadow of the Wind during her morning commute and, since she passed it on to me a few weeks ago, I haven’t been able to tear myself away. I was deeply moved by the words of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. In fact, I devoured his book with a highlighter at the ready, underlining quote after quote. This story is not only a dark and intoxicating tale of loss, murder and love, but also manages to dream up a world in which books are personified and a love of literature is sacred. If you remove the themes of death and destruction, I think I’d quite like to live in this kind of book utopia!
Now, I hope you don’t find me presumptuous when I say, I think you too may wish to inhabit one such world.
Since discovering your note near the back of the book (I actually stumbled across it halfway through reading it after the book, fatefully some would say, fell open to the page after I knocked it off my nightstand), I haven’t been able to stop thinking about who the woman behind the scribble might be. I tried to create an image of you as I read, picturing the kind of person who would carefully select this text for what I feel is such a daring plan. I fear I may already be quite besotted with you.
I hope you’ll do me the kindness of allowing me to take you out for a drink. Because, if Zafón is correct about books being like mirrors and reflecting what’s already inside you, I have a feeling we have more than just good taste in books in common.
In anticipation,
Ben
From: Scarlett O’
To: Benjamin Norwood
Subject: RE: I’m glad this book has an owner
Dear Ben,
Thank you so much for your email. So, much. I can’t believe you found my book! And I can’t believe how much you sound like a royal prince of England. Are you sure you aren’t actually Prince Harry?
While you are obviously an incredibly smart, refined and wonderful gentleman of well-read proportions, unfortunately I cannot accept your generous offer to take me out. You see, when I put all those books out there on trains (there must be over a hundred out there by now!), I didn’t realise that there was actually no point to any of it. Because I had already found the man of my dreams. I just couldn’t see it because I was too much of a scared little book snob. Do you know what it’s like to find the man of your dreams and then mess it all up?
I am just so scared that he’ll never forgive me. I wake up in the middle of the night terrified that I’ll never see him again and that he will always hate me. Always!
No, Frankie, NO! You can’t think like that. You are meant to be with Sunny. (That’s his name. Isn’t it the sweetest name?) He will find one of those damned Young Adult books and he will see how much you love him and he will forgive you! But then, I’ve put so many books out there, and still, nothing. That’s why I’m drowning my sorrows in a bottle of red. I can’t bear the thought of him never knowing how much I care about him.
But seriously, can you even believe he reads YA books? I mean, Jane Austen would be rolling over in her grave if she knew that Twilight is ranked number twelve in the top 100 bestselling books of all time. TWELVE! And the sequel is sixteen on the list! That’s a whole forty-two (or is that forty-nine?) levels higher than To Kill a Mockingbird. I mean, really …
Anyway, I digress. All I really wanted to say was, thank you for your offer, but I am determined to win back my man if it’s the last thing I do!
In anticipation (for Sunny to love me again),
Frankie
PS If you actually are Prince Harry, please ignore everything I just said. And yes, be a jolly good fellow and take me out on a date! Drinks and some nosh at Buckingham Palace will do just fine. Cheerio!