⭐⭐⭐✨ (3.5/5)

In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in a hospital bed unable to remember what happened. By the time she leaves the hospital, her amnesia remains and although her life seems perfect (husband, house, friends etc.), she feels that something is not quite right. This feeling is confirmed when she discovers a love letter and begins to follow a path back to the life she lived before the accident

In 2003, Ellie’s life also seems great; she is in love, has a flat, and works at a newspaper. In reality, her lover is married and her job is looking precarious. Tasked to write a piece featuring articles from the archives, Ellie stumbles upon the love letters. She cannot shake the letters from her mind, and decides to follow the story.

I’ve found it difficult to decide how I feel about this novel, but here we go…

The main thing that I struggled with in this novel is the theme of adultery. This is not something I generally choose to read about, and I struggled with Ellie’s parts of the novel.

However, when it came to Jennifer’s situation, I did find it interesting to think about attitudes towards marriage and a woman’s position in the 60s.

Jojo Moyes is one of my favourite authors and I love her writing style. She has a way of creating characters that I can see in my mind and I adore that about her novels.

Additionally, I like that her novels have more to them than I may initially expect and that she gives a great narrative plus topics to think about further. For example, this novel is not just about affairs, it looks at a woman’s position and how that has changed too.

The plot that Moyes has constructed gave me more than I expected as well. There were twists and turns that I did not expect and I became quite emotionally invested by this really quite remarkable story.

Overall, this was quite a novel and although the topic of adultery meant it wasn’t entirely my thing, I was still drawn in by Moyes’ writing and particularly the twists and turns of Jennifer’s story.

I will be interested to watch the film adaptation this year too.