Why I bet my life savings on a romcom dream that made no sense at all

This summer I’d often find myself standing in shock, hand on chest, the kind of anxiety coursing through me that used to only happen the morning after a big night. Except this time, I wasn’t hungover.

Instead, I was opening a bookshop in a foreign country and I’d just spent my life savings on a rental deposit, shelves and a lot of books I couldn’t return.

I was being told on a near-daily basis that it was very hard to make money from selling books. Yet here I was, having emptied my bank account for something that everyone told me made no sense.