Letters to the Lost – Iona Grey

Historical Fiction
4*s

One cold February night Jess sees an opportunity to get away from her abusive boyfriend ‘Dodge’ and she takes it. The problem is she has just fifty pounds to her name and nowhere to live. Not wanting to stay where Dodge might find her she comes across an old empty house where she decides to stay the night. Sitting on the doormat is a pile of unopened mail including one that stands out, handwritten and on thick paper Jess opens it and finds a recent letter addressed to a Stella Thorne. Sensing a mystery that might take her mind off her own problems Jess is intrigued and a box of old letters soon gives Jess the background to the plea.

The writer of the letters is Dan, now in his nineties, frail, but with a lively mind but who Stella was remains a bit of a mystery. What is clear that these were two people in love so why did they spend the majority of their lives apart?

Will is also interested in the old house, he works for one of those companies that try and find heirs when someone dies without leaving a will. The woman whose house Jess is living in was Nancy Price and to try and get some background on her Will chats to the neighbours. Will is a posh boy whose life hasn’t ended up the way he, or his family expected, in short he feels a bit of a failure, not helped by a bullying boss. On his quest to sign up heirs, Will bumps into Jess not realising she is staying in the house of his quarry.

The story told that involves Dan and Stella is one of a war-time romance between an American airman and a lonely and unloved young woman. Stella is married to a Reverend and her war consists of church committee meetings, queuing for food and managing to turn her meagre supplies into a dinner for first her husband and then the new vicar once Charles goes off to fight his war. There is little excitement and that is provided by her friend from the children’s home Nancy. The story that follows will melt the hardest of hearts. One of the must-haves for me in these types of books is that the historical angle must feel authentic. The author has easily achieved this, painting a picture of war-time London that had all those little details to transport the reader to this difficult time. With Dan adding the realities of life as an airman which didn’t shy away from the terror these young men faced I truly felt the emotions as well as the war-time sacrifices a whole generation made.

For once in these dual time-line tales I was equally as interested in the present day story. Having an interest in family history made the trials of Will trying to track relatives down through the records an interesting twist to the story. With the clear parallels between Jess and Stella, despite the span of years between the two giving a feeling of ‘rightness’ to the character’s chosen. All of the main protagonists were clearly and consistently portrayed, not for this author the cheap trick of a misunderstanding that kept the lovers apart, the mystery was far more realistic than that.

Altogether a lovely read which brought a lump to my throat on a few occasion helped by the cleverly woven threads which had me longing to know just a little bit more each time I reached the end of a chapter. In my opinion this book deserves the huge accolades it has received this year and I for one am glad I met all of the characters although I was sad to say goodbye to them when I turned the last page.

This Week In Books (September 2)

Hosted by Lypsyy Lost & Found my Wednesday post gives you a taste of what I am reading this week. A similar meme is run by Taking on a World of Words

I am currently reading Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey and totally immersed in the stories past and present.

See yesterday’s post for the synopsis and a taster from this book

I have just finished something entirely different, The Beast of Jersey by Joan Paisnel, my tattered copy came courtesy of my son, Owen, who picked it up on one of his forays into charity shop, knowing that I’m fascinated by true crime he thought I should read this one which happened in Jersey.

Blurb

Edward Paisnel, a predatory paedophile nicknamed the Beast of Jersey, who was convicted in 1971 for an 11-year reign of terror. Paisnel believed himself to be the reincarnation of Gilles de Rais, and committed his crimes in the bizarre outfit depicted on the cover of this 1972 biography by his wife Joan. Goodreads

Next I am planning on reading The Insanity of Murder by Felicity Young. I really enjoyed Doctor Dody McCleland’s introduction in The Anatomy of Death so I’m looking forward to reading, this episode, the fourth in the series.

Blurb

To Doctor Dody McCleland, the gruesome job of dealing with the results of an explosion at the Necropolis Railway Station is testing enough. But when her suffragette sister Florence is implicated in the crime, matters worsen and Dody finds her loyalty cruelly divided. Can she choose between love for her sister and her secret love for Chief Inspector Matthew Pike, the investigating officer on the case?
Dody and Pike’s investigations lead them to a women’s rest home where patients are not encouraged to read or think and where clandestine treatments and operations are conducted in an unethical and inhumane manner. Together Dody and Pike must uncover such foul play before their secret liaisons become public knowledge – and before Florence becomes the rest home’s next victim. NetGalley

What are you reading this week?

See what I’ve been reading in 2015 here

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph (September 1)

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

My opening comes from Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

Blurb

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 love that draws them together. Dan is a B-17 pilot flying his bomber into Europe from a British airbase; his odds of survival at one in five. The odds are stacked against the pair; 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 a powerfully moving novel perfect for fans of Sarah Jio and Kate Morton. Goodreads

~ ~ ~

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph ~

Prologue
Maine, February 2011

The house is at its most beautiful in the mornings.
He designed it to be that way, with wide, wide windows which stretch from floor to ceiling, to bring in the sand and the ocean and the wide, wide sky. In the mornings the beach is empty and clean, a page on which the day is yet to be written. And the sunrise over the Atlantic is a daily miracle he always feels honoured to witness.
He never forgets how different it could have been.

Do you want to know more? Or perhaps you’ve already read this book?
Please leave your thoughts and links in the comments box below

20 Books of Summer 2015!

Cathy at Cathy746 has a yearly challenge to read twenty books over the summer months starting on 1 June 2015 and running until 4 September 2015, and this year I’ve decided to join her. I had already rationed myself from requesting quite so many review copies so the choices I make will be in addition to those that I have obligations to read and review.

As I’m competitive I’m signing up for the full twenty. My personal challenge is to read these twenty books from my bookshelf that I already own with at least half being physical books. Funnily enough I have plenty to choose from…

The only drawback with this challenge is I want to experience choosing a book that fits my mood so I have decided to begin by choosing a spread of genre to list the first ten books for my summer reading.

The links below will take you to the Goodreads description

The Night Watch – Sarah Waters

The Anatomy of Death – Felicity Young

Letters to the Lost – Iona Grey

The Maul and the Pear Tree – P.D. James & T.A. Critchley

The Disappearance of Emily Marr – Louise Candlish

Every Secret Thing – Emma Cole

Dancing for the Hangman – Martin Edwards

Rutherford Park – Elizabeth Cooke

Under World – Reginald Hill

The Whicharts – Noel Streatfeild

I will be joining Cathy by tweeting my way through the challenge using the hastag #20booksofsummer and I will provide (a yet to be decided logo) to demonstrate when one of my reads is part of this challenge!

There’s still time to join in and Cathy has also provided a 10 Books of Summer image for those of you who feel aiming for 20 is quite frankly ridiculous. Visit Cathy to get the full details here

So what do you think to my choices? Do you have any suggestions on where I should start or perhaps you think some of these need to be put back on the shelf and forgotten about? All comments welcomed!

Stacking the Shelves (May 9)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you’re adding to your shelves, be it buying or borrowing. From ‘real’ books you’ve purchased, a book you’ve borrowed, a book you’ve been given or an e-book they can all be shared!

Because I want to read the fantastic selection of books I bought last week I decided to ban myself from NetGalley until I’ve caught up with the reading that has mounted up. That went well until I heard that Angela Marsons latest book, Evil Games had been added. I’d really enjoyed Silent Scream earlier this year featuring Kim Stone so I couldn’t let that one pass me by!

Blurb

The greater the evil, the more deadly the game …
When a rapist is found mutilated in a brutal attack, Detective Kim Stone and her team are called in to bring a swift resolution. But, as more vengeful killings come to light, it soon becomes clear that there is someone far more sinister at work.
With the investigation quickly gathering momentum, Kim soon finds herself exposed to great danger and in the sights of a lethal individual undertaking their own twisted experiment.
Up against a sociopath who seems to know her every weakness, for Detective Stone, each move she makes could be deadly. As the body count starts to mount, Kim will have to dig deeper than ever before to stop the killing. And this time – it’s personal Netgalley

The publishers Harlequin sent me a copy of Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica as I’d enjoyed this author’s debut novel The Good Girl

Blurb

A chance encounter
She sees the teenage girl on the train platform, standing in the pouring rain, clutching an infant in her arms. She boards a train and is whisked away. But she can’t get the girl out of her head…
An act of kindness 
Heidi has always been charitable but her family are horrified when she returns home with a young woman named Willow and her baby in tow. Dishevelled and homeless, this girl could be a criminal – or worse. But despite the family’s objections, Heidi offers them refuge.
A tangled web of lies
As Willow begins to get back on her feet, disturbing clues into her past starts to emerge. Now Heidi must question if her motives for helping the stranger are unselfish or rooted in her own failures. Goodreads

And then it all went wrong! Having seen many reviews of Letters to the Lost, particularly that featured by The Book Trail, and having failed to secure a review copy, I decided I had to buy myself a copy. Like last week I fell into the trap of needing to spend £10 to get the free postage. So in addition to Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey

Blurb

A beautifully written and evocative novel—the story of an impossible, unstoppable love affair set in London during World War II and the present day,
An accomplished novel from a talented writer, Letters to the Lost is the kind of love story that will sweep you away from the very first page. Iona Grey’s prose is warm, evocative, and immediately engaging; her characters become so real you can’t bear to let them go.
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 love that draws them together. Dan is a B-17 pilot flying his bomber into Europe from a British airbase; his odds of survival at one in five. The odds are stacked against the pair; 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 a powerfully moving novel perfect for fans of Sarah Jio and Kate Morton. Goodreads

I went through my extensive wishlist and got a copy of Boy A by Jonathan Trigell, a story which covers the same subject matter as my recent read Humber Boy A by Ruth Dugdall

Blurb

A is for Apple. A bad apple.? Jack has spent most of his life in juvenile institutions, to be released with a new name, new job, new life. At 24, he is utterly innocent of the world, yet guilty of a monstrous childhood crime. To his new friends, he is a good guy with occasional flashes of unexpected violence. To his new girlfriend, he is strangely inexperienced and unreachable. To his case worker, he?s a victim of the system and of media-driven hysteria. And to himself, Jack is on permanent trial: can he really start from scratch, forget the past, become someone else? Is a new name enough? Can Jack ever truly connect with his new friends while hiding a monstrous secret? This searing and heartfelt novel is a devastating indictment of society?s inability to reconcile childhood innocence with reality. Goodreads

Coincidently as Ruth Rendell sadly died just three days after I placed my order I also have a copy of No Man’s Nightingale the last Inspector Wexford book, published in 2013.

Blurb

Sarah Hussain was not popular with many people in the community of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed parentage – a white Irishwoman and an immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the Reverend of St Peter’s Church.
But it comes as a profound shock to everyone when she is found strangled in the Vicarage.
A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. In his comparatively recent retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and is deep into Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He has little patience with Maxine’s prattle.
But when his old friend Mike Burden asks if he might like to assist on this case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford is obliged to pay more precise attention to all available information.
The old instincts have not been blunted by a life where he and Dora divide their time between London and Kingsmarkham. Wexford retains a relish for solving puzzles and a curiosity about people which is invaluable in detective work.
For all his experience and sophistication, Burden tends to jump to conclusions. But he is wise enough to listen to the man whose office he inherited, and whose experience makes him a most formidable ally. Goodreads

and as on that very day I came across a wonderful review on Rebecca Book Review, Girls of Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

Blurb

With beauty, power, and remarkable wit, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith interweaves a bittersweet portrait of growing up among the working stiffs of 1950s Hartford, Connecticut, with the chilling progress of a serial pedophile who threatens to shatter her small town’s innocence. In Girls of Tender Age, Smith lovingly evokes the jubilance and chaos of life in her extended French-Italian family and the challenges of living with her brother Tyler, an autistic at a time before anyone knew what that meant. Hanging over Smith’s rough-and-tumble youth is the shadow of the approaching killer who forever alters the landscape of her childhood. Goodreads

Any of these take your fancy or perhaps you’ve already read them?
What have you found to read this week? Please do share in the comments below