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WORK TITLE: Storybook Ending
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PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:University of Washington, B.A., M.A.
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CAREER
Journalist. Seattle Times, Seattle, WA, arts critic, 2001–. Common Readers (book club), founding member, 1989–.
AWARDS:First place, Best of the West, 2018.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Moira Macdonald has worked as the arts critic for the Seattle Times since 2001, where she critiques movies, television, books, dance, and fashion. Her journalism has won numerous awards over the years. Macdonald is a founding member of the Seattle book club, Common Readers, which began in 1989.
In Storybook Ending, April works remotely for a Seattle-based online real estate company. While she tries to maintain a social life, her friends have mostly left her behind and her potential love life is just a series of bad blind dates. She decides to get creative to shake things up in her lonely life. She writes a note and leaves it inside a book that she sells to a local bookstore, hoping that Westley, the store’s used-book counter staff, will read it. He does not and just shelves it. Widowed mother Laura finds the note in the book and believes that Westley is trying to get her attention. She follows the instructions in the note and leaves one of her own in another book that April collects. April and Laura begin communicating through notes, both believing that they are talking with Westley, who is oblivious to what is going on.
Macdonald admitted in an article in the Spokesman Review that, as a book reviewer herself, she is not accustomed to reading others review her own novel. She confessed: “It’s odd being on the other side…. The few (reviews) that I’ve seen have mostly been really nice. I’ve seen a few on social media that’s maybe more critical…. But you know as a critic you know there’s not a work that everybody’s gonna love.”
Writing in Library Journal, Joyce Sparrow opined that the novel is “ideal for fans of thirty-something second-chance love stories with appealing secondary characters.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that Macdonald’s “writing has the feel of a British rom-com.” The same critic concluded by calling Storybook Ending “a perfectly charming read for devotees of the written word and anyone who’s ever hoped to find love in a bookstore.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2025, review of Storybook Ending.
Library Journal, April 1, 2025, Joyce Sparrow, review of Storybook Ending, p. 92.
Spokesman Review, June 24, 2025, Amanda Sullender, “With Debut Novel, Seattle Times Critic Moira Macdonald Gets the Treatment from Jamie Ford–and It’s Quite the Review.”
ONLINE
Moira Macdonald website, https://www.heymoira.com (October 18, 2025).
Seattle Times website, https://www.seattletimes.com/ (October 18, 2025), author profile.
Woman wearing glasses and a black blouse sitting at a wooden table in a dimly lit room.
About Moira
A longtime Seattleite with roots in Vancouver, B.C., Moira has been an arts critic for The Seattle Times since 2001, writing about movies, books, dance, television, fashion, and the occasional cat-related event. Her journalism work has brought her in contact with countless interesting people over the years; among her favorite interviews are George Clooney, Kazuo Ishiguro, Colin Farrell, and her childhood idol, Julie Andrews. Moira is a two-time graduate of the University of Washington, with an M.A. in English literature and a B.A. in literature and theater. She is a proud founding member of the Common Readers, a small Seattle book club that’s been meeting since 1989. Storybook Ending, which has sold in 19 international territories, is her first novel — and a reminder that it’s never too late to stop procrastinating and do the thing you’ve always wanted to do.
Moira Macdonald
Moira Macdonald is the arts critic at The Seattle Times, writing about movies, books, dance, television and fashion since she joined in 2001. She has won multiple reporting awards, including a Best of the West first place in 2018, and is the author of the novel "Storybook Ending," published by Penguin Random House in 2025.
mmacdonald@seattletimes.com
With debut novel, Seattle Times critic Moira Macdonald gets the treatment from Jamie Ford - and it’s quite the review
June 23, 2025 Updated Tue., June 24, 2025 at 10:57 a.m.
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By Amanda Sullender
amandas@spokesman.com
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Seattle Times arts critic Moira Macdonald just released her first novel.
Seattle Times arts critic Moira Macdonald just released her first novel.
Moira Macdonald
What: The author of “Storybook Ending” in Northwest Passages conversation with Jamie Ford
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Gonzaga University, Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center Recital Hall, 211 E. Desmet Ave.
Tickets: $10 for general admission; $45 for VIP bundle with book, with reserved seat and reception with author at 6 p.m. and beverage token. Tickets available at MWPAC Box Office and available at spokesman.com/northwest-passages. Student of all ages free with ID (must pick up tickets directly at MWPAC Box Office). If ticket price is a barrier to attendance, please contact bookclub@spokesman.com.
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The tables have turned on longtime Seattle Times arts critic Moira Macdonald.
For that matter, they’ve turned on bestselling New York Times author Jamie Ford, too.
The two are set to take the Northwest Passages stage together Tuesday night in Spokane, but it won’t be Ford talking about one of his acclaimed novels, such as “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” or his more recent work “The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.” Instead he will be the one asking questions of an author.
“It is actually quite surreal,” Macdonald acknowledged ahead of Tuesday’s Northwest Passages conversation with Ford.
Her debut novel “Storybook Ending” is a light rom-com celebrating a love of books. The reviews rolling in haven’t been negative so far, but the critic-turned-author is still holding her breath.
“It’s odd being on the other side,” she said. “ The few (reviews) that I’ve seen have mostly been really nice. I’ve seen a few on social media that’s maybe more critical.
“But you know as a critic you know there’s not a work that everybody’s gonna love,” she said.
Well, Ford sure liked it.
“Storybook Ending is so radiant, so big-hearted, reading it feels like receiving an unexpected gift,” Ford said of Macdonald’s book. “In a world filled with love stories and tangled triangles, this one stands out – reaching a resolution as unique as it is profoundly satisfying. I absolutely loved this book.”
Ford knows Macdonald through a 2017 Seattle Times story she wrote about his novel “Love and Other Consolation Prizes,” which is set in Seattle.
Ford said he is “eternally grateful” for Macdonald’s thoughtful piece on his work and wants to now lift up her work. Still, he is a bit curious to hear from her what it has been like to make the leap from critic to author.
He’ll get to do that at 7 p.m. Tuesday for an audience in Spokane.
“I know it is not an easy transition. I do think about touring and festivals,” Ford said. “She’s going in there with all of these authors, and she’s probably at one point reviewed their books. So that’s going to be an interesting landscape to navigate because not all authors are so emotionally composed.”
Since selling her novel to a publisher in 2023 Macdonald can no longer review books since her financial relationship with a publisher could be seen as a conflict of interest. And she has found book publishing much more of a delayed gratification compared to the fast-paced grind of a daily newspaper.
“It has been a lot of waiting. It changed my life in many ways,” she said.
Ford is a little envious of Macdonald’s life as a critic. Though he imagines many critics long to be in his shoes as well.
“It must be kind of freeing to not to put in years of emotional labor into a piece and to read for pleasure,” he said. “And if you don’t enjoy it, you can talk about it and explain why. Like being part of a book club, but with 200,000 subscribers. It sounds like fun.”
Macdonald, Moira STORYBOOK ENDING Dutton (Fiction None) $29.00 5, 27 ISBN: 9780593851296
An anonymous note left in a used book creates a surprising love triangle in Seattle.
April knows she's become a bit too isolated while working remotely for an online real estate company. Her only social interactions come from awkward blind dates and apologetic texts from busy friends who have left her behind. Perhaps it's this loneliness that causes her to take drastic, romantic action. She leaves an anonymous note in a book she sells to local bookstore Read the Room--it's meant for the eyes of the cute flannel-wearing man who works at the used-book counter. But that cute employee, Westley, doesn't see the note before putting the book--Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz--on the shelf. Instead, it's found by widowed mother Laura, who thinks it's Westley's way of covertly communicating with her, and she responds by leaving a note in a copy ofThe Hunger Games, as April instructed in her original letter. Westley, meanwhile, has no idea why women are staring at him from the young adult section--he's focused on a movie that's filming at Read the Room. As April and Laura unwittingly leave each other letters, the many characters in the bookstore's orbit get to know each other and unlikely connections form. In her debut novel,Seattle Times arts critic Macdonald writes her own love letter to bookstores, and the community and comfort they can provide. The writing has the feel of a British rom-com, despite the Seattle setting, which gives the story a cozy air. Although there are romances brewing, the story is ultimately about the courage it takes to go after the life you want.
A perfectly charming read for devotees of the written word and anyone who's ever hoped to find love in a bookstore.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Macdonald, Moira: STORYBOOK ENDING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A832991898/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f614ef74. Accessed 23 Sept. 2025.
Macdonald, Moira. Storybook Ending. Dutton. May 2025. 320p. ISBN 9780593851296. $29. F
[DEBUT] Westley, an unassumingly handsome bookstore employee, is at the center of Seattle Times art critic Macdonald's debut novel about books and friendships, set in a Seattle bookshop and full of references to the hit 1993 movie Sleepless in Seattle. One of the shop's customers is April, a work-from-home real estate promoter, who decides to attract Westley's attention by leaving an anonymous note in a used book she is returning for store credit. Laura, a young widow with a seven-year-old daughter, is desperate for a copy of the same book for her first book club meeting and buys April's copy before can Westley inspect it. What results is more notes left in specific shelved books, and both women thinking that it's Westley who's writing to them. A subplot involves a Hollywood director filming a low-budget movie at the bookstore, with Westley as a stand-in. The happily-ever-after in Macdonald's novel is a new circle of relationships formed among the bookstore's employees, its customers, and the movie crew. VERDICT Ideal for fans of thirty-something second-chance love stories with appealing secondary characters.--Joyce Sparrow
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Sparrow, Joyce. "Macdonald, Moira. Storybook Ending." Library Journal, vol. 150, no. 4, Apr. 2025, p. 92. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A835170996/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=efe11398. Accessed 23 Sept. 2025.