The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

I read a review of this novel last year, and was intrigued, so I put it on my “to read” list. Last week I found myself in want of a light read, so I picked up The Last Letter from Your Lover. I was pleased to find that it was a poignant story, not just about love, but about discovering yourself and making difficult choices.

This is two stories that merge, one in the early 1960s, and one in 2003. Jennifer Stirling is a woman who has it all. She is poised, lovely and witty, married to an incredibly successful businessman. The novel opens with Jennifer recovering from a tragic car accident that has left her unsure of who she is and remembering nothing. As she slowly begins to piece her past together, she realizes that her life has not been what it appears. She finds several love letters hidden in her belongings, indicating that before the accident she was in love with someone else.

Forty years later, journalist Ellie Haworth’s life is a mess. She is involved with a married man and her career is careening towards disaster. An assignment sends her to the newspaper’s archives, where she stumbles upon a love letter buried in a file of apparently unrelated papers. With the tenacity of an investigator, Ellie goes in search of the people connected to the letter. She finds Jennifer, who willingly tells her story. In the process, each woman finds that what she believes isn’t necessarily the truth.

Although the conclusion of the novel is a bit predictable, the path to it is not. Several interesting twists and surprises will keep you reading, even when you think you know where this enjoyable story is taking you.

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The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

This debut novel opens with a woman standing in a park in the rain at night surrounded by dead bodies wearing latex gloves — and she has no memory of who she is. She finds a letter in her pocket which begins “The body you are wearing used to be mine.” How can you resist an opening scene like that one? I certainly couldn’t when I discovered this book just after it came out earlier this year. I’ve since recommended it to several co-workers and friends and now I’m passing this great book on to you.

The woman with amnesia in the park is Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced like Tiffany), and it turns out that she is an agent for Her Majesty’s Supernatural Secret Service. The operative words there are ‘supernatural’ and ‘secret’ because the stuff this agency deals with is way out there beyond just vampires and werewolves — and it is very, very secret. Her position is called a Rook, and it turns out the agency, called the Checquy, is based on the pieces in the game of chess (yeah, it’s as complicated as it sounds).

The letter Myfanwy found directs her to an apartment where there is a warm shower, clean clothes and a comfy bed. Further letters explain who she is, more about her super secret job, and the fact that someone within the Checquy is a traitor and trying to kill her. One of the letters also lets her know that she has a choice, she can try to resume her dangerous life in a secret government organization, or she can simply walk away and flee the country with a vast sum of money in a secret bank account.

Myfanwy decides to stay and try to determine who the traitor is. But, she must do this while re-learning everything about herself and the Checquy. She doesn’t even remember how she takes her tea, let alone all of the inner workings of this very strange agency. She also soon discovers that many of the agents working for the Checquy, including herself, have special abilities (think of the mutants from the X-Men). Her work-mates include one person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter anyone’s dreams, a man whose skin oozes toxins depending on his mood, and the most attractive vampire one can imagine.  So, yeah, dealing with a house full of sentient purple slime is all in a day’s work for Rook Thomas.

Daniel O’Malley has written one heck of a debut novel that is full of wit as well as suspense and fantastic supernatural action. There’s so much more to this novel than I was able to describe in this blog post! Even if you’re not normally a “Fantasy reader” but you enjoy a good suspense and espionage story, give this one a try. And, if you are a Fantasy reader, what are you waiting for? Click that link below and get reading! It’s also available as an audio book, read by Susan Duerden.

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The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry

Anne Perry states:  “I began the Monk series in order to explore a different, darker character, and to raise questions about responsibility, particularly that of a person for acts he cannot remember. How much of a person’s identity is bound up in memory? All our reactions, decisions, etc. spring from what we know, have experienced. We are in so many ways the sum of all we have been!”

I have always been a huge fan of Victorian mysteries, and this amazing multi-layered series is one of my all-time favorites!

William Monk, a caustic London police detective recovers from a serious accident and to his horror discovers his memory is gone, including all of his investigative skills.  Hiding his memory loss from others, as he works on a Crimean war hero’s murder, he uncovers more about his past self.  What he finds, to his dismay, is he is an unpleasant and disliked man…and that he himself may have committed the murder….

Monk’s character is surrounded by several strong characters like Hester Latterly, an opinionated young nurse who deals with sexual class discrimination, who becomes involved in assisting in his cases.

An interesting side series is an annual Christmas story focusing on one of the minor characters becoming involved in their own mystery.

I have enjoyed every single title in this prolific series as it evocatively portrays the mood of Victorian London and its dark undercurrents!

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