Tuesday, August 29, 2017

review: the lost letter by jillian cantor

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The Lost Letter is an incredibly powerful World War II story split between 1938 Austria and 1989 Los Angeles. As the story unfolds in alternating chapters, the upside-down stamp on the unsent letter found by Katie in her father’s stamp collection becomes clearly tied to the apprentice of a Jewish stamp engraver from the 1938 chapters. Partially in an effort to distract herself from her divorce and her father’s decline, Katie (along with a stamp appraiser) sets out to learn more about the unusual stamp, the author of the letter, and the intended recipient.

Although The Lost Letter is a work of fiction, it is based in reality—stamp engravers did play a role in the Resistance. By bringing in historical facts (the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 which seems to be the reason Jillian Cantor chose that year), the stories of these characters become all the more poignant. Cantor also expertly weaves together the two timeframes so that every piece is important.
5/5
Review copy provided by Amazon Vine.

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