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Synopsis
Violet Ackerman has drifted through a career, four children and a divorce without ever knowing who she is or what she wants. After moving to the coast, she starts receiving a series of mysterious letters sent from a mother and baby home in 1959, written by a pregnant twenty-year-old Elizabeth to her best friend. These letters intersperse Violet's turbulent relationships with her lover, her infuriating son and the eccentric fellow members of the Village Committee. Who is sending Violet these letters, and why? What will happen to Elizabeth's baby? 'The Letters' invites us see what happens when we don't run away. Will love be enough to encourage Violet to stay?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A pleasing if bristly read. The central character Violet might rub you up the wrong way but you won't forget her in a hurry!
A well structured novel, shifting back and forth through time, to give insight to how Violet came to be where she is today. Interspersed with intriguing letters from the past, which are revealed slowly but surely, increasing tension and interest throughout. And a final twist I wasn't expecting until I tripped over it.
People with striking characters, young and old, and blazing with striking descriptions throughout, a great start to a hopefully promising career.
A well structured novel, shifting back and forth through time, to give insight to how Violet came to be where she is today. Interspersed with intriguing letters from the past, which are revealed slowly but surely, increasing tension and interest throughout. And a final twist I wasn't expecting until I tripped over it.
People with striking characters, young and old, and blazing with striking descriptions throughout, a great start to a hopefully promising career.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Letters is a debut novel by Fiona Robyn. It is a startling work: like a flower that needs staking in the wind it wavers at base before Robyn's work bursts forth in the most beautiful living prose.
Violet is a fifty-one year old divorcee and mother of four adult children, a son and three daughters. She has moved to the Sussex coast to start again, and the book opens with Violet, in a terrible temper, leaving her lover Tom. Violet's reminiscences about her life, and how she has got to where she is, are interspersed with letters. These letters are mysterious objects out of time. A complete series dated in the 1950s, they arrive periodically and spook Violet as she tries to come to terms with the woman she has become post-divorce.
Initially not enough is made of the mysterious letters, they just appear, and much of the early story is made up of family reminiscence. Then suddenly, part way into the novel, Violet steps off the page and really starts to live, with prose that is light and fast and utterly convincing, and by the end we have an absolute little cracker of a book.
This is an ultimately enchanting first step on what will no doubt be a fascinating path for Fiona Robyn, and I am sure many readers will follow her work closely. It really is worth a read.
Violet is a fifty-one year old divorcee and mother of four adult children, a son and three daughters. She has moved to the Sussex coast to start again, and the book opens with Violet, in a terrible temper, leaving her lover Tom. Violet's reminiscences about her life, and how she has got to where she is, are interspersed with letters. These letters are mysterious objects out of time. A complete series dated in the 1950s, they arrive periodically and spook Violet as she tries to come to terms with the woman she has become post-divorce.
Initially not enough is made of the mysterious letters, they just appear, and much of the early story is made up of family reminiscence. Then suddenly, part way into the novel, Violet steps off the page and really starts to live, with prose that is light and fast and utterly convincing, and by the end we have an absolute little cracker of a book.
This is an ultimately enchanting first step on what will no doubt be a fascinating path for Fiona Robyn, and I am sure many readers will follow her work closely. It really is worth a read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I didn't enjoy this one as much as Fiona Robyn's other book The Blue Handbag. That book was well structured, with a mystery that developed along with the characters. The Letters doesn't seem to have much structure at all. It reads more like a prolonged character study, interspersed with some old letters that seem to have no connection to the narrative. They do have a connection but it is so obliquely hidden and largely ignored by Violet that it is hard to even care what it is. That's not to say the book isn't worth reading. Violet is an abrasive, impulsive, opinionated, sometimes volatile, though interesting character, who has a softer side hidden below all the brash bossiness, and she does have some stories to tell. Her relationship with her children, mainly her son, add a dash of amusement, as does the hopeless ensemble of the Village Committee, which kept giving me flashes of The Vicar of Dibley minus vicar and bottomless puddles.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Intimate, gripping and beautifully written
The Letters is an intimate, mesmerizing read littered with poignant and revealing insights. Successfully combining lyricism with pace and energy, and enough mystery to keep this... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Laura Wilkinson
Totally absorbing
I thoroughly enjoyed The Letters, the debut novel by Fiona Robyn. I found it a gripping read that I didn't want to put down. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Steele_in_Beds
Decadent syncopation
Fiona's poetry is exquisite; the words are almost palpable, ripe, warm and juicy like blackberries eaten as fast as they can be picked off the sun warmed brambles. Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2009 by DJ Kirkby
unusual debut
An intensely written and unusual novel with a flawed, bristly and yet compelling female narrator. Violet's grumpy voice and her gradual journey towards more fulfilling... Read more
Published on 15 April 2009 by Jenn Ashworth
Involving
Fiona Robyn's main character, Violet, suits her name - she's an organic, growing woman who has a journey to undergo towards personal fulfilment. Read more
Published on 29 Mar 2009 by Mrs. A. J. Whiteley
A thoughtful mystery that will keep you up late
I read this all in one go -- I didn't want to escape its clutches until I understood all its twists and mysteries. I felt the same way about Anita Shreve's book, The Pilot's Wife. Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2009 by B. Clare Grant
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