‘Storybook’ for summer: Seattle’s Moira Macdonald mixes romance, comedy and pop culture in perfect vacation read

If you’re looking for a fun summer novel, Moira Macdonald’s “Storybook Ending” is ready to be packed in the tote bag to read under on a sun-swept afternoon through rose-colored glasses.

It’s a light frolic with a little rom, some com, and dashed with pop culture references over the past 30 years.

If you find the story reminiscent of the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” it’s because the characters keep referencing the 1998 flick while describing the sudden and mysterious turn in their lives. Although as the two main female characters like to point out, their hair is better than Meg Ryan’s.

While that movie meant to romanticize the rise in technology, “Storybook Ending” seems to want to go back to a time when people wrote letters. Real letters. The kind on smooth stationary in cursive writing. Heartfelt messages meant for certain eyes, not posted for the reading and commentary of all friends, real or imagined. For young people, like DMs on paper.

The story opens with April regretting having written a letter that she slipped inside of a book bound for the neighborhood store, called the Read the Room, in Seattle. She had hoped the letter would find its way into the hands and heart of the handsome clerk who checked in all the used books for resale. She had hoped to start a conversation that would continue through a series of notes left to one another in books on the shelves, initiating a relationship without the threat of personal interaction. Less swiping, more leafing through pages.

The target of this infatuation is Westley. That’s right. Apparently, his mother was a fan of “The Princess Bride,” who gave him a name that has everyone he meets uttering “As you wish,” and thinking they’re the first ones to ever say that.

In a rush one day, Westley gets distracted. Laura, another of the lonely hearted, walks into the bookstore and asks for that very same book. It takes a while for someone to find it, and she discovers the note. She decides it was meant for her, maybe from that cute guy.

She follows the directions, placing an answer between the pages of “The Hunger Games” in the young adult section. The middle book.

What ensues is a madcap yarn of mistaken identity that’s sure to enliven any day at the lake.

All of the main characters are leading lives that are very quiet and full of desperation.

April is a single online writer who is becoming weary of the solitude of her work-from-home life and yearns for human connection. Westley is the movie-star handsome clerk, who has just the amount of awe-shucks humility to make him appealing. Laura is a personal shopper at an upscale department store. Five years ago she lost her young husband to cancer and has been raising their daughter, now 7, alone.

Westley had given up a dream job that imploded to work at the bookstore, a pillar of the neighborhood for decades, and has survived in the very home of Amazon. It’s a place where he “air smelled like old paper, coffee, and possibility.”

Of course, both women love books more than real life, and Westley is the keeper of the books.

Macdonald manages to bring a smalltown feel to sprawling Seattle. A quirky independent filmmaker decides to shoot a movie at the bookstore. Westley catches the eye of the advance man and lands a bit part. Donna, the director, ends up in need of an outfit for an awards ceremony, goes to the swanky department store and, wait for it, gets Laura as her personal shopper.

Everyone, meanwhile, has a crush on Westley, who we begin to realize, would really just rather be left alone.

The novel uses the tried-and-true storytelling of alternating points of view, each chapter named after one of the main characters, so we know who’s talking.

This is a light, fun story with just enough quirkiness in the characters to keep their otherwise dull lives interesting. Macdonald’s breezy writing makes it a quick and easy read.

Perfect for a summer vacation.