Happy Saturday everyone – here is the final installment from a bookish odyssey I took on a March weekend that saw me visit five bookshops and a book fair. You’ve already seen the fruits of this in my Spring Works update, the post about Kibworth Books and of my revisit to Quinns. Today, it’s the turn of the book fair.
First things first, this is a book fair of the type where you can buy direct from Indie authors and also buy bookish merch and crafts. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from it in terms of types of books that would be on sale, but at the Market Harborough event it was a mix of everything – there was historical romance, mystery, local history, childrens, fantasy and more. It was in a conference centre behind one of the town centre hotels and I don’t think they could have got any more stalls in without it seeming over crowded. There were loads of people in there when I got there (about an hour after opening, late morning) and all the vendors that I spoke to were friendly and not pushy.
I know your next question is going to be what did I buy, but you’ll have to wait for Books Incoming next week for all the details, but it was an eight book Saturday across the fair, Kibworth and Quinns, three of which came from the fair. What I will show you though are the gorgeous blind dates with a book I bought:
These are not only beautifully wrapped, but came with stickers and a bookmark each. I’ve had mixed fortunes with book blind dates because I have read so much and have ended up with stuff I’ve already read before, but the smart people behind Literary Luxe Designs had put codes on the back of them so that they could give you clues and would even check your Goodreads for you to see if you’d already marked something as read. Of course once they’d done that, I still wanted to know what they were – and they would tell you too – so I was happy with my choices and content to leave them wrapped up until I got home which meant I didn’t risk losing the stickers in the car!
The book fair was run by Rosie’s Retro Bazaar – who run them at venues across the Midlands. The next one is in May in Birmingham. They were also handing out flyers for Coventry Festival of Books in July which I will be keeping an eye on the line up for, although it is the weekend before Book Con 2026 so it might be one book event too many this summer unless the guest list is up my street!
Have a great weekend!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
I really wanted to go to this but in the end I had to go somewhere else. I’m glad that it was worth going to though and hope that you enjoy your mystery reads.