Review: INK: A Love Story on 7th and Main

INK: A Love Story on 7th and Main by Elizabeth Hunter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Emmie Elliott has come to her grandmother's home town of Metlin, California to sell her grandmother's bookstore. But at the eleventh hour she decides, for unfathomable reasons, not to return to her job (in a bookstore) in San Francisco but to update and re-open her grandmother's store. Since she's been away Metlin has started to become cool - apparently cool enough to hold at least three tattoo shops - with lots of hipster type shops opening up and an influx of hip, sexy people to run them. Although Emmie is all button-down shorts and granny cardigans, her pseudo brother is a tattoo artist called Spider (because of the spider tattoo over his head) so she has a less-than-conservative outlook on life. However, the bookshop is barely breaking even (after taking account of the rents receivable from the other stores in the building which is now owned by Emmie) and the retail space is too large for the footfall. Emmie is looking for a complementary shop to share her space which doesn't compete with her or any of her friends.

Miles Oxford, known as Ox to everyone except his mother, lives and works with his girlfriend Ginger at her tattoo parlour Bombshell. Their relationship is highly volatile and they provide entertainment to most of Main Street with their passionate arguments and make-up sessions. Until one day Ginger goes too far and they split for good with Ox's possessions thrown across the street for good measure! Emmie originally just offers Ox some boxes for his possessions but the two of them realise that he is looking for a shop to start his own tattoo business and she is looking for a tenant to sub-let part of her shop - this could be an unconventional match made in heaven.

The one thing they both agree? They have to keep things professional and under no circumstances should they get involved romantically.


I loved the premise of this novel, a bookshop owner invites a tattoo artist to share her over-large shop, especially the ink v ink reference. And I enjoyed the book, I just didn't love it. I think it was fun but I didn't really feel I got under the skin of either Emmie or Ox and I had read too many books in a similar vein. Even the angst was a bit low key and off-stage. I felt that this was maybe a spinoff from a previous series, although I can't immediately see which of Elizabeth Hunter's other series it could be, and I also felt the other characters were being set up for their own novels which distracted me from the romance between Ox and Emmie.

Having said that, Ox was so sweet and selfless and sexy... he could be my new book boyfriend.

This is the sort of small town we all want to live in. Full of smart, sexy, talented people running creative businesses with funny friends - it's like the Gilmore Girls but on the West Coast.

Maybe it's because I was really looking forward to this book that I found it slightly less than I had been anticipating.

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