The structure is really clever – as Jess reads the letters we read them with her, the gaps are filled by our visits to Stella’s world, and the whole book moves totally seamlessly between the two worlds. The book opens with Jess – a character you quickly get very attached to – running away from her present day problems, finding refuge in a deserted house, and stumbling across the wartime story of Stella and Dan after discovering a box of letters. But she also conveys the very different world Stella inhabited – the moral unassailability of the church, the expectations of women, the challenges of being “different”. The author does a magnificent job of recreating wartime Britain, peopled with vividly drawn characters and with just enough well-researched detail to bring it all to life: I loved the detail around the preparations for the fete (and the arguments over scones and ginger cake), the preparing of food, the effect of rationing (and the value of tinned peaches), the impact of the blackout.

For three thoroughly blissful days I was totally lost in the wartime love affair of Stella and Dan, aching for them with every obstacle and injustice they encounter, my heart in my mouth waiting for Ruby Shoes to return safely and for Dan to write his next letter. We all read for different reasons, but one of the things I love is the way you can live inside a book for as long as you’re reading it, entirely leaving the real world behind – and when this book ended, I cried my eyes out because everything had been so perfect. Letters To The Lost by Iona Grey is published by Simon & Schuster on 23 April in paperback and for kindle: it’s a substantial read, 560 wonderful pages, but it could have been twice as long as I never wanted it to finish. Otherwise they might never read it – and that would be so dreadful. Can she help Dan find Stella before it is too late?Įvery so often, a book comes along that is so thoroughly perfect that you feel like you’re going to burst if you can’t tell everyone about it. 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.

Iona grey letters to the lost