The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

Sara Lindqvist, a quiet, book-obsessed Swedish woman, arrives in the small town of Hope, Iowa, clutching a copy of Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl and waiting for her pen pal, Amy Harris, who is more than two hours late. Sara and Amy became friends after exchanging a book through an online secondhand shop, and their two-year correspondence inspired Sara, recently unemployed after her bookshop in suburban Haninge closed, to visit Amy in Broken Wheel. A woman from Hope arranges a ride for Sara, warning her not to hand over any money. The novel alternates between Sara's present-day experiences and letters Amy wrote over the course of their friendship, introducing the town's inhabitants and history.

Broken Wheel is a tiny, dying town: a handful of buildings along a road, most storefronts boarded up, a single traffic light stuck on red. Sara enters the diner, Amazing Grace, where the owner, Grace (whose real name is Madeleine), informs her that Amy is dead. George, a quiet local everyone calls "Poor George," drives Sara to Amy's house, where the post-funeral reception is underway. Caroline Rohde, a commanding, gray-haired woman who functions as the town's unofficial leader, tells Sara to sleep in Amy's guest room, and the minister, William Christopher, confirms this is what Amy wanted.

Sara conceals Amy's death from her parents in Sweden and begins exploring the town, which proves even more depressing in daylight. The town council, consisting of Caroline, Jen Hobson (an energetic housewife who runs the town newsletter), and Andy (who runs the Square, the local bar, with his partner Carl), assigns George as Sara's chauffeur and begins scheming to pair Sara with Tom, Amy's nephew.

Andy invites Sara to the Square for drinks. Tom picks her up but is cold and distant. At the bar, Sara learns that Amy had been ill for years and likely knew she might die during Sara's visit. Sara feels betrayed and gets drunk. That night, she opens Amy's bedroom door and discovers a private library: bookcases lining every wall, hundreds of titles spanning every genre. She stays among the books for hours, grieving and reflecting on the tragedy that written words are immortal while people are not. Over conversations on Amy's porch, Tom reveals the town's painful history: the school's closure, the loss of farms, and Amy's unhappy marriage to a man who tried to drive John, the town's only Black resident and Amy's closest friend, out of business. Tom warns Sara not to romanticize Broken Wheel, but Sara counters by naming the people who remain.

Frustrated that no one will let her pay for anything, Sara fixates on Amy's empty shop and conceives a plan: Broken Wheel needs a bookshop. She presents the idea to the skeptical town council, proposing to stock it with Amy's books and order more with her own money, running the shop informally since her tourist visa prohibits employment. George takes charge of cleaning with unexpected competence, finding renewed purpose. Caroline organizes a furniture collection, and Tom builds bookcases. Sara names the store Oak Tree Bookstore, paints the walls cheerful yellow, and installs mismatched armchairs. On the night before the opening, she stands alone in the finished shop and promises Amy they will "spread books and stories in Broken Wheel together."

No one buys books at first. Sara creates unconventional shelf categories: SEX, VIOLENCE, AND WEAPONS; SMALL-TOWN LIFE; SHORT BUT SWEET; and FOR FRIDAY NIGHTS AND LAZY SUNDAYS. She adds a GAY EROTICA shelf, which provokes Caroline into a moral crisis; Caroline buys one of the books, reads it, and is unexpectedly moved. Customers from Hope begin visiting, often condescending toward Broken Wheel. Andy and Grace devise a counter-scheme: whenever a Hope customer appears, townspeople flood the bookshop pretending to be avid readers. The ruse partly backfires, but publicity from Jen's newsletter attracts growing numbers of visitors. Gertrude, one of the town's elderly gossips, becomes hooked on Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the town slowly starts reading.

Sara's relationship with Tom deepens through shared silences and long conversations. She invites him to dinner; they cook together and discuss Amy and John's love story, a lifelong romance that never became a marriage because of racial barriers. One rainy evening, they kiss intensely but stop short of sex. Tom tells Sara he is not interested in a vacation fling, and Sara leaves elated despite the rejection.

The town buzzes with new activity as the council plans a market and dance. George secretly cleans the apartment of Claire, a local woman he is growing close to, while she is at work. Caroline meets Josh, a young bisexual man from Hope, and they develop an unexpected connection. Sara's visa situation grows urgent: A lawyer says marriage to an American citizen is the only realistic path to residency. At the dance, Andy and Jen unveil a banner reading "MARRY US!" and announce Tom as the town's representative to marry Sara. Tom is furious and accuses Sara of going along with an illegal scheme, but Sara insists she never expected him to go through with it.

Meanwhile, George's ex-wife Michelle arrives unexpectedly with Sophie, the daughter she took when she left George years ago. George begins bonding with the teenager. Sophie visits the bookshop, where she tells Sara she likes dragons; Sara sets aside Eragon by Christopher Paolini for her. But Michelle's boyfriend arrives and takes them away abruptly, leaving George devastated with no forwarding address. Claire finds George passed out by a field, gets him up, and promises they will find Sophie together.

George volunteers to marry Sara himself, which prompts Tom to step forward and agree. Sara moves into Tom's house, and during a dress fitting she realizes with sudden certainty that she loves him, though she believes Tom is acting only out of duty. John visits the bookshop and warns Sara that Amy would not have wanted Tom to marry without love. At the church, just as the ceremony reaches its climax, Gavin Jones, a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureaucrat who noticed discrepancies between Jen's newsletter and the pending marriage application, interrupts on suspicion of immigration fraud. Grace drunkenly aims her hunting rifle at him and shouts "Towanda!" (a battle cry from Fried Green Tomatoes). Everyone is taken to the USCIS office for questioning, where Tom and Sara each confess and claim sole responsibility, both admitting they are in love. Alone in the waiting room, they share a slow, tender dance.

Caroline visits Gavin and calmly offers to have the whole town prosecuted, arguing that Tom and Sara genuinely love each other and that the townspeople were the real schemers. Gavin realizes he has no evidence of fraud and drops the case. Tom and Sara have a second, genuine wedding. The whole town attends: Caroline and Josh together, Grace with her rifle, George with Claire beside him. During the ceremony, Sophie appears in the doorway, having received a wedding invitation Sara sent along with the second book in the Eragon series. George rises and says her name; Claire makes room. Sara reflects that reality is just as good as books, and the novel closes with the declaration that they would all live happily ever after.