The Magic of DOON & The Booksellers

I’m old enough (young enough?) that when I was little, I saw Disney princess movies in the theatre. I remember loving Ariel but being terrified of Ursula. I remember dreaming of having a library like the Beast’s and of visiting a quaint little French village like Belle’s. I have loved The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and fairy tales ever since.

Last week, a friend and I had tickets to see The Book of Mormon at the Aronoff Center in downtown Cincinnati. The show started at 7:30, we had dinner reservations for 5:30 at an elegant restaurant called Boca, and we arrived downtown around 4:30. With about an hour to spare, we decided to stop in The Booksellers of Fountain Square bookstore.

I’d been to The Booksellers once before prior to the Bengals playoff game against the Chargers. I had an extra hour that day, too. I loved it the moment I stepped inside. The smell of coffee greeted me along with the comforting scent of new books. The walls were painted a soft green and the shelves were chocolate brown. I wandered through until I reached the YA section near the back. This is the first place I took my friend last week. 

We were looking for a specific YA book—the name of which is irrelevant at this point—when I spotted a different one. This one had a green cover, a dark-haired girl in a gorgeous red gown standing on a bridge and facing away from me, and a fairy tale castle nestled among mountains in the background. DOON by Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon. The cover was beautiful, but what also drew my attention was a small sticker in the bottom left corner of the book. The Booksellers of Fountain Square Autographed Copy the sticker said. I picked up the book. Inside, Carey Corp had signed her name and added the message Cross the bridge! That was enough for me. This book was mine. 

I showed the book to my friend because I knew she loved fairy tales—I’d once let her borrow ENCHANTED by Alethea Kontis and THE TREACHERY OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS by Ruth Long. Luckily, we didn’t have to fight over this signed copy because there were two more on the shelf. We each bought DOON before settling down with some coffee to wait for our Boca reservations. Boca was delicious and The Book of Mormon was hilarious, but the most important part of that evening was our discovery of DOON.

I finished DOON on Wednesday and the thing that strikes me most is that it’s about two American girls, best friends, who find an enchanted bridge that allows them to cross into the fairy tale kingdom called Doon. I’d like to say that my friend and I, two American girls, found an enchanted land that day last week, but what we really found was an enchanted bookstore and an enchanted book.

The closest I’ll ever get to Doon may be a high school trip to Scotland, but that doesn’t matter—I gave DOON a five star rating on Goodreads. I loved this book. It’s a fairy tale. It’s about best friends and handsome princes. It takes place in Scotland and Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon capture the Scottish accent so well that the word dinna will echo in my head for days. It’s about an evil witch, true love, danger, and happiness. Its end is both—spoiler alert—perfect and heartbreaking.

If you like fairy tales, YA, hot guys, or best friends, you should read DOON. You should also stop by The Booksellers (if you live in Cincinnati or are lucky enough to pass through) and see if you can find your own magic there. I, meanwhile, will dream of visiting Doon while I wait for DOON’s sequel.