Meet The Booklover Team
Olivia became the proud owner of The Booklover Bookshop in 2019 and loves being part of such a fantastic book-loving community. Some of her favourite authors include Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, Jane Austen, and Sarah Winman. Her top reads over the past couple of years have been: Still Life, The Whalebone Theatre, Lessons in Chemistry, Humankind, and Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Olivia is also an author (though she tends to keep it on the downlow!). Her first historical novel, The Girl from London - based on fascinating true events - was published by Moa Press late last year.
When she’s not living in the world of books, Olivia can usually be found at the beach or sharing a delicious meal at home with her family and friends. In random order she loves sunshine, music, chocolate, Greek food, being in nature, doing fun stuff with her kids, reading (of course), intense workouts, podcasts, funny TV shows (think Ted Lasso, Community, Brooklyn 99) and vegetables (the greener the better).
Rachel’s goal since she was very little has always been to own her own bookshop, so she’s spent her life soaking up all the bookish knowledge she can until that day arrives. She is currently the Social Media Manager at The Booklover Bookshop.
You’ll find her at the beach walking her spoodle, Tilly, with her mum or her husband, Armand, when she’s not at the shop. You may also find her at the cinemas eating popcorn that she’s 99% sure she’s allergic to (just try to stop her).
She is incredibly passionate about bookselling and is confident that there’s nothing quite like the feeling of sending someone home with your favourite book. She believes you can never have enough copies of your favourites which is why she owns over 20 different copies of The Little Prince, The Outsiders and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland… it’s a storage problem, not a book problem.
Laura moved to New Zealand from deepest, darkest Gloucestershire three years ago, leaving most of her books with the Oxfam shop in Oxford. So she was starting from scratch when she entered The Booklover Bookshop to start filling her empty bookshelves again. Poacher come game keeper she moved from reader to bookseller just before Christmas 2022 and loves nothing better than chatting to people about what to read next. Biography and memoir are her favourite genres as she says truth is invariably stranger than fiction. Though her favourite novel of recent times is A Gentleman in Moscow and her favourite author of all time is Rumer Godden and her favourite bookish fact is that she went to the same school as Katherine Mansfield in London (only a few years later).
