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A review by thephdivabooks
The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn
4.0
Beautifully-written and full of romance, nostalgia, mystery, and intrigue, The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant by Kayte Nunn is a story of two women whose stories intertwine across history and through shared emotions. Beautiful and powerful!
It is no secret that I am finishing up my PhD in psychology, and I am very passionate about mental health and women’s issues. This book just spoke to me on so many levels, I found it to be a powerful story exploring the challenges women have faced throughout history.
Told in dual timelines and woven together through a collection of letters that are found in the present and link to the past, the structure of this book kept me captivated. I’ve always loved when books center around letters or journals from the past that open up a mystery to solve through time. In Nunn’s latest novel, I felt this magical thread that seemed to connect two women across history, and presented us with the takeaway that women’s challenges transcend time, no matter how much progress we have made.
When Rachel Parker find a suitcase of letters during her research, she becomes fascinated with the woman who wrote them. The letters lead her to more questions than answers, and she is determined to find the intended recipient of the letters. In 1951, Esther Durrant was a wife and mother, committed to a mental health hospital (let’s be real… a mental asylum) against her will.
Rachel tracks the mystery of the letters down until she finds a woman named Eve, whose grandmother Esther wrote the letters containing references to a secret Esther was harboring. Now, Eve cares for her grandmother at the end of her life, when Rachel finds them in search of the key to the mystery of those forgotten letters.
Full of warmth and heart, I connected with all three women characters in the book. In a story of the strength that women bring to life, even at their most damaged and vulnerable, I lost myself in the best way.
Thank you to TLC book tours for my copy. Opinions are my own.
It is no secret that I am finishing up my PhD in psychology, and I am very passionate about mental health and women’s issues. This book just spoke to me on so many levels, I found it to be a powerful story exploring the challenges women have faced throughout history.
Told in dual timelines and woven together through a collection of letters that are found in the present and link to the past, the structure of this book kept me captivated. I’ve always loved when books center around letters or journals from the past that open up a mystery to solve through time. In Nunn’s latest novel, I felt this magical thread that seemed to connect two women across history, and presented us with the takeaway that women’s challenges transcend time, no matter how much progress we have made.
When Rachel Parker find a suitcase of letters during her research, she becomes fascinated with the woman who wrote them. The letters lead her to more questions than answers, and she is determined to find the intended recipient of the letters. In 1951, Esther Durrant was a wife and mother, committed to a mental health hospital (let’s be real… a mental asylum) against her will.
Rachel tracks the mystery of the letters down until she finds a woman named Eve, whose grandmother Esther wrote the letters containing references to a secret Esther was harboring. Now, Eve cares for her grandmother at the end of her life, when Rachel finds them in search of the key to the mystery of those forgotten letters.
Full of warmth and heart, I connected with all three women characters in the book. In a story of the strength that women bring to life, even at their most damaged and vulnerable, I lost myself in the best way.
Thank you to TLC book tours for my copy. Opinions are my own.