Letters to the lost

Iona Grey

Book - 2015

"An accomplished novel from a talented writer, Letters to the Lost is a stunning, emotional love story. Iona Grey's prose is warm, evocative, and immediately engaging; her characters become so real you can't bear to let them go. I promised to love you forever, in a time when I didn't know if I'd live to see the start of another week. Now it looks like forever is finally running out. I never stopped loving you. I tried, for the sake of my own sanity, but I never even got close, and I never stopped hoping either. Late on a frozen February evening, a young woman is running through the streets of London. Having fled from her abusive boyfriend and with nowhere to go, Jess stumbles onto a forgotten lane where a small, c...learly unlived in old house offers her best chance of shelter for the night. The next morning, a mysterious letter arrives and when she can't help but open it, she finds herself drawn inexorably into the story of two lovers from another time. In London 1942, Stella meets Dan, a US airman, quite by accident, but there is no denying the impossible, unstoppable attraction that draws them together. Dan is a B-17 pilot flying his bomber into Europe from a British airbase; his odds of survival are one in five. In the midst of such uncertainty, the one thing they hold onto is the letters they write to each other. Fate is unkind and they are separated by decades and continents. In the present, Jess becomes determined to find out what happened to them. Her hope--inspired by a love so powerful it spans a lifetime--will lead her to find a startling redemption in her own life in this powerfully moving novel. "--

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Subjects
Genres
Romance fiction
Published
New York : Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press 2015.
Language
English
Main Author
Iona Grey (-)
Edition
First U.S. edition
Physical Description
376 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9781250066770
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Grey's engaging debut is set in rural WWII England and the present day as Londoner Jess Moran flees from her abusive boyfriend and finds refuge in a small, long-abandoned cottage. When a letter is delivered, she impulsively opens it and discovers that an elderly American, Dan, in failing health, is writing to find a past love from more than 70 years earlier. This sets Jess on a mission to uncover the mystery behind Dan's association with the house, which turns the story back to the early 1940s, when Stella is wed to a solemn vicar, Charles. After he leaves his young bride for a mission in Africa, she encounters Dan, a B-17 bomber pilot, and they embark on a passionate and complicated affair. Stella is torn between her love for Dan and her duties as a wife, while Dan is in perpetual fear that his latest mission will be his last. Grey alternates between the past and Jess' efforts to reunite the two lovers in a true race against time in this captivating tale of love and love lost.--Strauss, Leah Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

Escaping her abusive boyfriend, Jessica Moran takes refuge as a squatter in a long-abandoned London house where the next morning a letter addressed to a Mrs. S. Thorne is dropped through the slot. Upon opening the letter, she learns that the writer is an American ex-serviceman who is making a last valiant attempt to find his lost English love, whom he has not seen in 70 years. Inspired by this passionate and urgent letter and her own curiosity, Jess vows to find Stella and bring these lost souls together if at all possible. VERDICT Grey's engaging, poignant, and romantic debut treats readers to an absorbing story within a story. Her detailed narrative chronicles the lives of these intriguing characters while fluidly traveling from past to present. The author's subtle depictions of social and moral intolerances of the past and the gentle hand of fate that guides this tale makes her novel an excellent choice for fans of Beatrice Williams (Overseas; A Hundred Summers), Jon Clinch (The Thief of Auschwitz), and Kristina -McMorris (Bridge of Scarlet Leaves).-Debbie Haupt, St. Charles City-Cty. Lib. Dist., MO © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.