TLC Book Tours Book Review: Letters From Skye

Author: Jessica Brockmole
Title: Letters From Skye
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publish Date: July 30, 2013
Buy: Amazon

Blurb: A sweeping story told in letters, spanning two continents and two world wars, Jessica Brockmole’s atmospheric debut novel captures the indelible ways that people fall in love, and celebrates the power of the written word to stir the heart.

March 1912: Twenty-four-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet, has never seen the world beyond her home on Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye. So she is astonished when her first fan letter arrives, from a college student, David Graham, in far-away America. As the two strike up a correspondence—sharing their favorite books, wildest hopes, and deepest secrets—their exchanges blossom into friendship, and eventually into love. But as World War I engulfs Europe and David volunteers as an ambulance driver on the Western front, Elspeth can only wait for him on Skye, hoping he’ll survive.

June 1940: At the start of World War II, Elspeth’s daughter, Margaret, has fallen for a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Her mother warns her against seeking love in wartime, an admonition Margaret doesn’t understand. Then, after a bomb rocks Elspeth’s house, and letters that were hidden in a wall come raining down, Elspeth disappears. Only a single letter remains as a clue to Elspeth’s whereabouts. As Margaret sets out to discover where her mother has gone, she must also face the truth of what happened to her family long ago.

Sparkling with charm and full of captivating period detail, Letters from Skye is a testament to the power of love to overcome great adversity, and marks Jessica Brockmole as a stunning new literary voice.

Review: This is the kind of novel that always pulls me in. I love the time period between the two World Wars.

What I really loved was how you got the story through the letters written between Elspeth and David. There's something intimate about reading letters that really makes you feel like you are sharing something with the characters and that's how this book made me feel, like I was peaking in on the lives of these people.

This is a remarkable debut novel with writing that just pulls you in. In a time when letter writing is becoming a thing of the past, this book gives a glimpse of how words to paper really mean something and can last a whole lot longer than words typed on a phone or a computer screen.

There was really no way I wasn't going to enjoy this book. I recommend it highly to anyone that loves historical fiction from the first part of the 1900's.

Rating: 5 flowers