Sybil is seventy-three years old, in the winter of her life. Sybil has always made sense of the world through writing letters and through this epistolary novel we see how she comes to terms with her past and present and learns forgiveness.
An epistolary novel par excellence, a tale told in letters that is staunchly, defiantly old-school, in form and message ... Something about our particular moment calls forth nostalgia for pen-and-paper communication. This is an epistolary novel for the social media era, appealing to the hearts of readers who feel like they were born just a little too late, and are now condemned to operate in a world where interpersonal communication is so omnipresent as to have lost its glamour.
A delight: melancholy without being sentimental, warm without being cosy, witty without being silly ... If any of this sounds twee or parochial, rest assured it is not ... An ode to a dying art form, and proof that your life is never too decided to make a change. It deserves to be a word-of-mouth success this side of the Atlantic too.
Charming, engrossing, and deeply moving, Evans’ novel explores the way everyday choices and relationships shape a life and shows it’s never too late to form new connections, make amends, or even fall in love.
