It's no secret here at Flea Market Love Letters H.Q. that we love to read all things letters. Especially Books About Letters! Each month we take a look at a "Book About Letters" in depth -- recently we read and shared "Things We Didn't Say", a fantastic epistolary book about the WWII. We love to discover all books having to do with letters. That's books about letters, letter writers or books that use letters as structure, or books with letters as part of the story.
That's why we enjoy putting together these Reader Recommendations (Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3!). Keep in mind these are not reviews but synopses with clickable links for you to find and add any which sound interesting to your TBR ("To Be Read" List). Without further adieu, here's our most recent batch of reader recommendations:
"Woman Enters Left" by Jessica Brockmole
Goodreads Summary: "A woman sets out on a cross-country road trip, unknowingly tracing in reverse the path her mother traveled thirty years before.
In the 1950s, movie star Louise Wilde is caught between an unfulfilling acting career and a shaky marriage when she receives an out-of-the-blue phone call: She has inherited the estate of Florence “Florrie” Daniels, a Hollywood screenwriter she barely recalls meeting. Among Florrie’s possessions are several unproduced screenplays, personal journals, and—inexplicably—old photographs of Louise’s mother, Ethel. On an impulse, Louise leaves a film shoot in Las Vegas and sets off for her father’s house on the East Coast, hoping for answers about the curious inheritance and, perhaps, about her own troubled marriage.
Nearly thirty years earlier, Florrie takes off on an adventure of her own, driving her Model T westward from New Jersey in pursuit of broader horizons. She has the promise of a Hollywood job and, in the passenger seat, Ethel, her best friend since childhood. Florrie will do anything for Ethel, who is desperate to reach Nevada in time to reconcile with her husband and reunite with her daughter. Ethel fears the loss of her marriage; Florrie, with long-held secrets confided only in her journal, fears its survival.
In parallel tales, the three women—Louise, Florrie, Ethel—discover that not all journeys follow a map. As they rediscover their carefree selves on the road, they learn that sometimes the paths we follow are shaped more by our traveling companions than by our destinations."
"The Lost Manuscript" by Cathy Bonidan, Translated by Emma Ramadan
Goodreads Summary: "The Lost Manuscript is a charming epistolary novel about the love of books and magical ability they have to bring people together.
When Anne-Lise Briard books a room at the Beau Rivage Hotel for her vacation on the Brittany coast, she has no idea this trip will start her on the path to unearthing a mystery. In search of something to read, she opens up her bedside table drawer in her hotel room, and inside she finds an abandoned manuscript. Halfway through the pages, an address is written. She sends pages to the address, in hopes of potentially hearing a response from the unknown author. But not before she reads the story and falls in love with it. The response, which she receives a few days later, astonishes her...
Not only does the author write back, but he confesses that he lost the manuscript 30 years prior on a flight to Montreal. And then he reveals something even more shocking--that he was not the author of the second half of the book.
Anne-Lise can't rest until she discovers who this second mystery author is, and in doing so tracks down every person who has held this manuscript in their hands. Through the letters exchanged by the people whose lives the manuscript has touched, she discovers long-lost love stories and intimate secrets. Romances blossom and new friends are made. Everyone's lives are made better by this book--and isn't that the point of reading? And finally, with a plot twist you don't see coming, she uncovers the astonishing identity of the author who finished the story."
"The Postmistress" by Maggie Sullivan
Goodreads Summary: "Heartwarming and nostalgic new Saga series from the author of Mother’s Day on Coronation Street.
It’s 1939 and one ordinary street in Lancashire is getting ready for war, but who knows what else is going on behind the blacked-out windows?
Sylvia Barker runs the haberdashery in the village of Millhead, her headstrong daughter Rose has no plans to waste her life on a lot of old needle and cotton. She’ll get a shock when a few family secrets come to light.
Violet Pegg has been writing to a Canadian pilot and is excited to learn he is going to be stationed nearby; with so many girls eager to make friends with the handsome young man, will Violet get a look in?
Vicky Parrot has known more heartache and tragedy than most 25 year old and she wouldn’t know where to look for happiness even if she tried, is the war about to change all that.
In a time when the country is pulling together, can the people of Millhead do their best for King and country?"
"Cartes Postales from Greece" by Victoria Hislop
Goodreads Summary: "Week after week, the postcards arrive, addressed to a name Ellie does not know, with no return address, each signed with an initial: A.
With their bright skies, blue seas and alluring images of Greece, these cartes postales brighten her life. After six months, to her disappointment, they cease. But the montage she has created on the wall of her flat has cast a spell. She must see this country for herself.
On the morning Ellie leaves for Athens, a notebook arrives. Its pages tell the story of a man's odyssey through Greece. Moving, surprising and sometimes dark, A's tale unfolds with the discovery not only of a culture but also of a desire to live life to the full once more."
"Letters to the Lost" by Iona Grey
Goodreads Summary: "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, clearly 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."
Think something is missing?
Email us your must-read pick at info@fleamarketloveletters.com.
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