Rebus to the rescue! Author leads campaign to save town’s bookshop

THE owner of a struggling bookshop who made a Twitter plea for help has been overwhelmed with customers – after best-selling authors including Ian Rankin and Sue Perkins got behind the cause.

Sapphire Bates, owner of Book Bodega in Ramsgate, Kent, tweeted that she would have to shut up shop if she didn’t make £800 by today to pay the bills. ‘We need your help!... Winter is killing us, it’s soo quiet,’ she wrote on Sunday.

Rankin, famed for his Inspector Rebus crime novels, shared the plea, writing: ‘Attention, readers of Ramsgate...’ Former Bake Off presenter Ms Perkins joined the chorus along with historian Tom Holland. Adam Kay, author of This Is Going To Hurt, offered to host an event at the shop to drum up publicity.

Ms Bates’s original post has already been seen by nearly six million people and the 29-year-old said the shop has been ‘really busy’ since. ‘I feel slightly overwhelmed... to suddenly have thousands respond felt quite surreal,’ she added.