When Love, Ink, and Intention Align

Paper Love, by sapphic author Jae, is a love story of many dimensions.

Between jobs, Suzanne Wolff, a corporate restructuring executive, is tasked by her mother with helping her Uncle Norbert restructure his stationery store, Paper Love, and turn a profit. Suzanne couldn’t want this job less. First, she lives in Berlin, while her uncle’s store sits in the heart of Freiburg—a charming town just outside Germany’s Black Forest—a whopping eight-hour drive away. Second, Suzanne knows virtually nothing about the luxury writing paraphernalia Norbert stocks. And finally, helping her father’s brother undo the reckless damage he’s done to his business has all the makings of triggering Suzanne’s professional PTSD.

Anja Lamm, Norbert’s trusted sales associate, has no idea just how dire the situation is for the job she loves. A true stationery expert, Anja understands the difference between a nib and a ballpoint. She knows her customers want expertise and personal attention—and for the prices they pay for writing instruments, she’d better know her stuff. What she doesn’t yet recognize—perhaps neither does Norbert—is how modernizing their operations could not only sell more products but pull the shop out of the red hole Nobby has dragged it into.

Suzanne plans to analyze the business, make her recommendations, and return to Berlin to find the lucrative job she needs to maintain her lifestyle. Meanwhile, all Anja wants is to preserve the store as the romantic little hub for pen lovers she’s always felt at home in. However, if they’re going to save Paper Love, they’ll have to dig in their heels and work together—modernizing the store’s sales while preserving the charm that keeps customers coming back again and again.

Jae has honed her brand of romance writing into an art form. She’s created a distinctive formula that works—and it pays off. The grumpy leading lady she creates is often—at first—abrasive, cool, and arrogant, especially toward her eager, joyful counterpart. Yet once the two love interests get down to brass tacks, the more openhearted heroine begins smoothing the rough edges of her bad-tempered co-star. Jae writes her characters with X-Acto knife–like precision, giving them space to breathe when needed while simultaneously poking fun at their rigidity.

Paper Love couldn’t be better paced. Jae layers conflict for her heroines with moments of breath-stopping intensity and delivers a perfectly timed ending that feels exactly right. What sets Paper Love apart from other sapphic romances with similar pacing is the didactic—but never heavy-handed—look at the stationery business. The novel doesn’t try to overtly persuade the reader about luxury stationery products, nor does it get bogged down in the mechanics of business. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about fountain pens and luxury notebook paper. Jae’s affection for the industry comes through without ever feeling preachy about its sustainability.

That said, she did a heck of a job enticing me to search for a fountain pen web store to nab my first (of many, now) fountain pen and good-quality paper notebook.

But what she does even better is take us through the streets of Freiburg. Jae’s characters wander through this charming setting with abandon—and so did I. I loved reading about the city’s Old World appeal, its meandering Bächle (little brooks) running through the streets, and the local superstition that if you accidentally step into one while visiting, you’re destined to marry a local.

Clearly, this book is for anyone who loves romance, travel, and the tactile pleasure of writing with fountain pens. You name it—I think it’s in there. This book is for anyone whose heart is wide open.