Letters from Skye is a sweet and simple book that ultimately disappointed me because the author seemed to believe that the cliched plot twists and insubstantial characters and setting could be saved by a charming concept. 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.

Only a single letter remains as a clue to Elspeth’s whereabouts. Then, after a bomb rocks Elspeth’s house, and letters that were hidden in a wall come raining down, Elspeth disappears. Her mother warns her against seeking love in wartime, an admonition Margaret doesn’t understand. June 1940: At the start of World War II, Elspeth’s daughter, Margaret, has fallen for a pilot in the Royal Air Force. 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. 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. So she is astonished when her first fan letter arrives, from a college student, David Graham, in far-away America. 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. 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.

Letters from skye book