The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Miranda grows up in Los Angeles adoring her eccentric Uncle Billy, a seismologist who also owns Prospero Books, a neighborhood bookstore in Silver Lake. Billy designs elaborate scavenger hunts for her. On Miranda's twelfth birthday, Billy fails to show up to her party, triggering a tense argument between her parents, Susan (Mom) and David (Dad). That night, Billy arrives at 3:00 a.m., and Miranda witnesses Mom cursing at him on the porch, telling him that whatever happened was his choice. Weeks later, Billy takes Miranda on a belated birthday outing and buys her a golden retriever puppy, but Mom returns it. Miranda calls Billy repeatedly; he never responds. When she takes a bus to Prospero Books to find him, Billy is gone. He never returns, and the family stops mentioning his name.

Sixteen years later, Miranda is twenty-seven and living in Philadelphia with her boyfriend, Jay, a fellow eighth-grade history teacher. A mysterious package arrives containing a copy of Shakespeare's The Tempest and a card reading, "Understanding prepares us for the future." That evening, Mom calls to say Billy has died. Miranda recognizes the phrase as something Billy told her after her first earthquake and connects it to a highlighted passage in the play where Prospero tells his daughter Miranda she "must now know farther." Realizing Billy has initiated one final scavenger hunt, she flies home for the funeral.

At Forrest Lawn cemetery, Miranda notices Billy is buried beside someone named Evelyn Weston, a name she does not recognize. Billy's lawyer, Elijah Greenberg, tells her there is an inheritance to discuss. At Elijah's office, Miranda learns Billy has left her Prospero Books, along with a copy of Jane Eyre with an antique key tucked inside. The name "Evelyn Weston" is inscribed in the front cover. Mom reveals that Evelyn was Billy's wife, that she died before Miranda was born, and that The Tempest was Evelyn's favorite play, explaining both the bookstore's name and Miranda's. When Miranda asks how Evelyn died, Dad says she had a massive seizure but grows evasive.

Miranda returns to Prospero Books and meets its staff, including Malcolm, the guarded manager who read a Dylan Thomas poem at the funeral. In Billy's upstairs apartment, the antique key opens a locked desk containing photographs and keepsakes from Miranda's childhood. Clues on the backs of the photographs lead to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which contains Billy's medical records: He was diagnosed with aortic stenosis, a terminal heart condition, two years before his death. Miranda visits Billy's doctor, Dr. Nazario, who gives her an envelope Billy left containing the next riddle.

The riddle describes a creature "made of fibres, muscles and brains, eight-feet tall," which Miranda identifies as Frankenstein's monster. A flyer inside a copy of Frankenstein leads her to Dr. John Cook, a Caltech physicist and Billy's childhood friend. Cook tells Miranda about Billy's lifelong love for Evelyn, who was Mom's best friend. Cook describes Billy appearing at a physics convention after Evelyn's death, presenting desperate calculations about parallel universes, hoping Evelyn was still alive somewhere. Cook gives Miranda the next clue, which leads to Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.

Elijah reveals the store is deeply in debt, with only enough money to last until September. Miranda refuses to sell, instead partnering with Malcolm to plan book clubs, readings, and a gala for September 28. Her relationship with Jay deteriorates over the distance between them.

A used copy of Fear of Flying contains a letter from Sheila Crowley, a writer who had an affair with Billy born from shared grief: Sheila's partner, Daniel, died by suicide, and Evelyn also died. The letter insists Evelyn's death was not Billy's fault. When Sheila returns from a book tour, she tells Miranda about meeting Billy in a grief counseling group and confirms that Mom once called Evelyn's death "a terrible accident," contradicting Dad's earlier claim of a seizure.

A clue in Jane Austen's Persuasion leads Miranda to Burt Weston, Evelyn's father, a former agricultural magnate now living with severe dementia in Orange County. Mom begs Miranda not to visit, calling Burt "a cruel and selfish man," but Miranda, furious at her mother's continued secrecy, goes anyway. In a lucid moment, Burt shouts "Murderer!" about Billy and references "Evelyn and the child." Miranda leaves with an envelope containing a puzzle that leads to The Grapes of Wrath.

Inside copies of The Grapes of Wrath, Miranda finds coordinates in Billy's code pointing to a cabin in Fawnskin, near Big Bear Lake. At the cabin, she discovers a heart carved into the porch with the initials "B & E." At the local library, she finds a newspaper article from December 31, 1985, describing a devastating snowstorm the previous day, the date of her own birth. Among the fatalities is a thirty-four-year-old woman who died of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning; her husband, described as "an earthquake scientist," and their newborn girl survived in critical condition. Miranda realizes that the woman was Evelyn, the husband was Billy, and the baby was her. Billy is her biological father. Mom is not her biological mother.

A clue in Bridge to Terabithia leads Miranda to Lee Williams, the former Prospero Books manager, now living in Santa Barbara. Lee recounts arriving at the cabin after the storm to find Billy unconscious and Evelyn unresponsive, a roof vent clogged with snow having trapped carbon monoxide inside the house. Lee describes how Billy, months later, returned to the store and casually referred to Miranda as "my niece." Lee understood without asking that Billy had given his daughter away. He hands Miranda an envelope containing another copy of The Tempest, completing the circle.

Billy's enclosed letter, dated August 2012, is his confession. He explains that he always felt responsible for Evelyn's death because he failed to fix the leaking roof when she asked. He acknowledges that giving Miranda up was "cowardly, not courageous" and that he was afraid of all the ways she reminded him of Evelyn. He admits he blamed Mom unfairly and ends with Prospero's plea: "As you from your crimes would pardon'd be, / Let your indulgence set me free."

Miranda quits her teaching job, breaks up with Jay, and drives to her parents' house. Mom confirms everything and tells her side: Billy refused to hold his newborn daughter, disappeared for over a week when Miranda was six weeks old, and insisted that Mom and Dad raise her as their own. Mom also reveals that Evelyn died during an emergency C-section from an amniotic fluid embolism, a rare and sudden pregnancy complication that caused the fatal seizure. The fight on Miranda's twelfth birthday erupted when Billy arrived drunk with Evelyn's emerald earrings, accusing Mom of stealing his daughter. Mom screamed that it was his choice, and Billy left forever.

Miranda tells Mom she does not hate her and acknowledges that Mom loved her as a mother. She and Malcolm reconcile and begin a relationship. At the store's gala on September 28, the neighborhood turns out in force. Mom and Dad attend for the first time, and Mom sings with the band, reclaiming a flash of the bold young woman she once was. After the party, Miranda recites Prospero's final words and proposes renaming the store. The group settles on "Yesterday's Bookshop," a name that honors the past while acknowledging they are no longer living in it. The walls stay green, Evelyn's favorite color.