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I popped into town on Saturday morning on the hunt for a new read. Top of my list was Alchemised—but the Waterstones special edition had already sold out. There weren’t even any standard editions left on the shelves, not even an empty space where they should have been..

In the end, I ordered a copy from Amazon on Sunday. The corners are a little bashed from transit (something that would have been avoided if I’d grabbed one in-store), but at half the price it’s hard to complain; and once it’s on the shelf, the damage is unnoticeable. You know me though, I’ll no doubt still pick up the paperback edition when that’s finally released.

Still, the trip into town wasn’t wasted. With no Alchemised to bring home, I decided to wander through the local charity shops instead, and if you’re a book lover like me, you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say that charity shop shelves often feel like treasure chests; you never quite know what hidden gems you’ll stumble upon.

Among the rows of paperbacks and hardbacks, one title immediately caught my eye: The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence. First published in 1920, it tells the story of Alvina Houghton, a woman torn between duty and desire, between the constraints of her provincial English upbringing and her yearning for freedom and passion. It’s a novel about love, identity, choices, and the search for meaning in a world that doesn’t always make it easy for women to carve their own paths. Many consider it a semi-autobiographical reflection of Lawrence’s own turbulent life and complicated view of relationships.

But it wasn’t the title, or even the author, that truly floored me.

When I opened the book, I found an inscription written inside:

I hope you are near to the exit of the maze! Love G x

I froze, staring at the handwriting. It felt like the recipient had been going through something difficult, and G was offering them hope, that the hard part of their journey was nearly over, that they were close to finding their way through. It wasn’t just an inscription. It was a lifeline.

I stood there in the shop, my chest tightening. The message was so deeply personal, so tender, that it almost felt wrong to be holding it. A stranger’s story, captured in ink, still echoing decades later.

And then I did the unthinkable.

I put the book back.

Fast forward to today, Tuesday. And I can’t stop thinking about it. Less than the cost of a chocolate bar, and yet I walked away from a piece of someone’s story. But ultimately who was G? Who was the recipient of this book? Was it a gift to a lover, a partner, or even a close friend? Did they walk through the metaphorical maze together and find the “exit”? Or did fate intervene, leaving one or both of them lost, their story unfinished?

That inscription has stayed with me all weekend, and in a strange way, it made me reflect on my own absence from blogging. Like the recipient of that book, I’ve felt caught in my own maze lately; life, work, the everyday distractions that pull me away from the things I love. Writing has always been an “exit” for me, a way of making sense of things. Yet I’d let it slip.

Finding that book felt like a nudge. A reminder that stories, whether in novels or in life, are worth sharing. Even the ones with no neat ending.

So maybe this post is my first step towards my own exit of the maze. And if I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s this: never leave behind a book that speaks to you. Especially one with words scrawled inside. Because sometimes, those scribbled messages mean more than the story itself.

As for The Lost Girl and the mysterious G, perhaps I wasn’t meant to carry their story forward. But their words found me all the same, and they’ve left me wondering about love, loss, hope, and the exits we’re all trying to find.

✨ Have you ever found an inscription in a book that stopped you in your tracks? Would you have bought The Lost Girl, or walked away like I did?