The Lost Letters of Evelyn Wright - Clare Swatman - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Clare Swatman

GENRE: Women's Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: February 15, 2024

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A book that is too realistic to be likeable as it has plenty of judgemental characters who care only about their own life and have no ethics at all. I am conflicted in my opinion because while I see the accuracy of the portrayal of such characters, I am not sure if such a book fits well in the feel-good genre.

Plot Preview:

After a bitter divorce from her cheating husband Rob, Beth is looking for a fresh start. Unfortunately, with her limited funds, all she can afford is an old, unkempt cottage on the outskirts. Her children Olivia (7) and Jacob (5) aren’t impressed with the house, and are frank about their opinion.

When Beth finds a box of letters while clearing out one of the rooms, she discovers that they are all agony aunt letters written by someone named Evelyn Wright. As Beth reads them and relishes the wisdom of Evelyn’s words over the next few days, she decides to begin her own agony aunt ‘column’ online, so that she too can help others the way Evelyn helped her. And if she can locate Evelyn and thank her, all the better.

The story comes to us from Beth’s first person perspective.

The title is a little bit misleading because the story is not ABOUT the lost letters of Evelyn Wright, but about what happens in Beth’s life once the letters are found. The story is mostly Beth’s, and therein lies the trouble.

I remember what Jane Austen had said about her most infamous protagonist, Emma: “I'm going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” Yeah, well, I wonder if Ms. Swatman thought the same while creating Beth. Because if she did, she certainly succeeded! But if she meant for us to root for Beth, tough chance!

Usually in such stories, where one half of the couple has cheated and the other is bitter, it is easy to sympathise with the spouse who has been caught unawares by the infidelity. In this case though, I could sympathise with neither Beth nor Rob. They both are such annoying and self-centred characters that I felt sorry for their kids at being caught in between the mess. Are there couple like this in real life, fighting through divorces acrimoniously and shaming each other in front of their children? Of course, there are. Does that make reading about them in a fictional novel easier? Nope!

Initially, I attributed Beth’s aggression at her anger over being left with the raw end of the deal. Rob got the house as well as a new woman, while Beth had to start her life all over again with two young children. She had every right to be angry! But soon, Beth took some decisions that didn’t sit well with me. Becoming an agony aunt and advising people over major personal problems without any professional qualification, using the old Evelyn columns and moulding their advice to new issues, talking about some of the problems shared privately to her ‘Evelyn’ email id with her new friend Catherine and Charlie, discussing Catherine’s private matter with Charlie without her knowledge – all are major red flags. But the biggest irritant was when she engaged in an illicit relationship with a married man, after she herself had suffered because of her husband’s infidelity – ridiculous!

Again, do such women exist? Of course, they do! But so much reality doesn’t suit what is essentially escape-from-reality fiction. I’d have expected such behaviour from characters in a literary fiction exploring the depths of human murkiness. A well-written literary novel would have handled the emotional and moral aspects of this plotline far better, while not resorting to commercial melodrama. So I am not questioning the authenticity of the character portrayal; I am just saying that I didn’t expect such frustrating characters in the women’s fiction genre.

The only four characters who work well in this book are Catherine – who is too forgiving for her own good, the two children Olivia and Jacob – who aren’t afraid to speak up, and Natalie – a surprise addition to this list as she is the woman who slept with the married Rob. I don’t think I have ever included a marriage wrecker among the better characters of a novel, which shows how horrible the rest are.

Evelyn’s magazine column seems interesting, and as many chapters begin with one of her letters, we get a glimpse of her outspoken advice as well as some outdated thinking, thanks to the letters being from the 1950s. The quest for Evelyn has its charm, but I wish we could have heard more from Evelyn herself. Some interlude chapters containing her perspective from the past would have worked wonders. Evelyn’s arc contains a mystery, but this “mystery” is a trope slowly becoming so common in this genre that it doesn’t even feel like a mystery anymore! I wish this particular “secret” wouldn’t be so overused; it will lose its impact soon.

The only good thing in this story is its realistic depiction of what a bitter divorce does to children. It is painful to read, and sadly, not entirely fictional.

I had loved this author’s ‘How to Save a Life’, but the two books I read after that – ‘A Love to Last a Lifetime’ and ‘The World Outside My Window’ – were a mixed bag and a dud, respectively. The rating trend is not improving much, which is really disappointing.

All in all, is this a bad book? Not really. But is it an enjoyable book? Not at all. If you treat this as a story showing all that is wrong with humans AND you can enjoy books with characters whose ethics are non-existent most of the way AND don’t mind some OTT drama, this will work better for you. But to typical women’s fiction readers who are looking for a light or feel-good story, I’d not recommend this at all.

My thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Lost Letters of Evelyn Wright”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.