Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love

British writer Cronin (The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot) serves up an enjoyable story of an unlikely friendship forged at a Birmingham thrift store. Eddie Winston, a 90-year-old store employee, meets Bella, 24, when she comes in with a donation of clothes left by her late boyfriend, Jake, whose death a year earlier she still hasn’t recovered from. The pair hit it off and soon get together for lunch in a local park. When Bella learns Eddie has never been kissed, she makes it her mission to help him find love, and signs him up for dating apps. But Eddie still pines for Birdie, the wife of a philandering professor at the university where he taught in the 1960s. Despite their strong mutual attraction, both Eddie and Birdie respected her wedding vows. As the narrative builds toward a sweet finale, Cronin flexes her deadpan wit, particularly in scenes where Bella encourages Eddie to take risks (“Bella promises that if I do die,” Eddie narrates before joining her on a roller coaster, “she will help the ride operator to drag my body off the ride and throw it into the sea and then they will call the authorities and say that I fell off the pier while clutching my chest”). It’s a winning tale of second chances. (Dec.)