Just prior to the bombing, Margaret and her mother had had a major argument after Margaret had announced her intention to marry Paul, her longtime friend, now love interest (the pilot). Margaret sets out to track down her mother's whereabouts with only clues from one old letter to help her in her search. Elspeth goes missing after a bomb attack on the village.
Drama within the letters (this being an epistolary novel) unfolds.įast forward to World War 2 and Elspeth's grown daughter is in love with an RAF pilot.
More than once, she tries to push past her phobias and grant his request, but it doesn't go so well. David obviously understands there are risks going into a war zone, but he explains to her that he needs to do this. Her feelings having intensified for him over time, she hates to think of him in danger. She's not happy with his decision, to put it mildly. Soon after the start of WW1, David volunteers to serve as an ambulance driver for the French Army (Elspeth's husband, Iain, is also serving in the war). It may not be poetry to you, but I've never thought of your letters as anything less. In any case, don't stop writing to me, no matter what. The tone of the correspondence, as you might guess, eventually takes on a more romantic tone. A friendship through letters soon develops. She's surprised to receive fan mail from American university student David Graham. 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.Įlspeth Dunn is a 24 year old wife and published poet who, due to a phobia of boats and the sea, has never left the Isle of Skye (Scotland). 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.
0 kommentar(er)
