Book Review - A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff

Phoebe Swift is the protagonist in Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair and she is emotionally struggling through every day.  She had a successful and thriving career at Sotheby's London working with and auctioning off vintage clothing, she had a loving fiance' and a lifelong best friend who was always there for her.  Then an un unthinkable tragedy occurs and Phoebe's life as she knows it is forever over.

Lost in her own world, Phobe sets about opening her own vintage clothing store in Blackheath, a section of South London.  Once she is given credit by the bank to do so, Phoebe's store, Village Vintage is born.  Little does she know, but Village Vintage, the clothes that she acquires and more accurately the personal histories that go with many of the vintage items, are to be Phoebe's saving grace.

Through her store - Phoebe meets Dan - a journalist that writes a piece about her new store in the local newspaper.  He writes a very accurate story that has peole coming into her store more quickly than she had anticipated.  It's this local news article that prompts Therese Bell to call on Phoebe to come peruse her own vintage clothing for hopeful purchase.  Phoebe does indeed purchase many of the elderly Mrs. bell's clothing and an unlikely but extremely beautiful friendship is born between the two women.

Phoebe and Mrs. Bell quickly learn that their souls are joined by very similar losses in their lives but for incredibly different reasons.  The stories of these losses threads throughout A Vintage Affair but it is also a story of redemption and personal forgiveness.

I freely admit that I was crying at the end of this book.  A Vintage Affair is beautiful and poignant and I've already started recommending it to my friends.  I truly love this book and imagine I will definitely read it again at some point in time.  As I will also be looking for more books by Isabel Wolff to read.