With a dual time-frame narrative, not too dissimilar to another book I recently reviewed, The Dandelion Years by Erica James, Letters to the Lost tells a story set in the past through a series of letters between two lovers, which are found by someone in the present timeline. Can she help Dan find Stella before it is too late?Īfter Antonia Honeywell's brilliant dystopian novel The Ship and Stuart Prebble's suspenseful and disturbing The Insect Farm, Letters to the Lost was the third novel I received in the post for the Curtis Brown Book Group and it was another fantastic read that sprouted a fantastic book group discussion. And as Jess reads Dan's words, she is captivated by the story of a love affair that burned so bright and dimmed too soon. But Stella has gone, and the letter is opened by Jess, a young girl hiding from problems of her own. Seventy years later Dan makes one final attempt to find the girl he has never forgotten, and sends a letter to the house where they shared a brief yet perfect happiness.

Theirs is a reluctant, unstoppable affair in which all the odds are stacked against them: she is newly married, and he is an American bomber pilot whose chance of survival is just one in five. Stella Thorne and Dan Rosinski meet by chance and fall in love by accident. My edition: Paperback (proof), to be published on 23 April 2015 by Simon & Schuster, 549 pages.ĭescription: 1943, in the ruins of Blitzed London…

Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey