diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/search_query_parser.py b/src/calibre/utils/search_query_parser.py
index 589aa313f2..9771f08133 100644
--- a/src/calibre/utils/search_query_parser.py
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/search_query_parser.py
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@ class Parser(object):
                 (r'[()]',             lambda x,t: (1, t)),
                 (r'@.+?:[^")\s]+',    lambda x,t: (2, unicode(t))),
                 (r'[^"()\s]+',        lambda x,t: (2, unicode(t))),
-                (r'".*?((?<!\\)")',   lambda x,t: (3, t[1:-1])),
+                (r'".*?((?<!\\)")',   lambda x,t: (3, t[1:-1].replace('\\"', '"'))),
                 (r'\s+',              None)
         ], flags=re.DOTALL)