Postcards from the Past – Marcia Willett

Contemporary Fiction
4*’s

Billa is enjoying life living in a small community with her brother Edward in their Cornish childhood home. Although she occasionally mourns the children she never had, on the whole life with Edward and Dom, who lives nearby, is almost too good to be true. All that peace of mind changes when a picture postcard of a bicycle arrives. The words are innocuous so why does she hide it away? What harm can someone she has not had news of or set eyes on for over fifty years do?

This book is one of those that has multiple stories skilfully handled. The landscape, people, dogs and life in a small community is descriptive without being laboured so that I had a clear picture of each character, what their hopes and dreams were, what sadness they’d suffered and what their homes look like; all of these were vivid and clearly defined.

All of the scene setting makes the point when the past collides with the present, in the form of an unwelcome visitor, more dramatic. What does he want and how much of the tale he tells them can they believe? Can someone really destroy all the beauty and love that surrounds Billa and Edward? Both siblings deal with the visit in their own way and as ever Dom is looking out for both of them.

There is something for all types of readers within these pages; a little bit of romance, a little bit of mystery a book that allows the reader to examine how actions in the past can have consequences in the future but most of all this is a book about people which Marcia Willett has bought to life with her expert layering of their stories.

I received my copy of this book from the publisher in return for this honest review.