The Last Letter from Your Lover, Jojo Moyes

What can I say? I am a fan of all things JoJo Moyes, and The Last Letter from Your Lover did not disappoint. I have heard/seen/know, that this book is coming out as a movie soon; I’m not big on reading a book after watching a movie and am generally disappointed by movies, so I clambered to read this before I got sucked in by the big screen hype. So glad I did.

Without giving too much away, this is a love story, no big surprise there, but it is a bit unusual in that it spans several decades. Set in an era where women had no voice and were looked upon as empty-headed, judged for their beauty, grace, and ability to host a party, Jennifer Stirling is drowning in her life until she meets Boot, an arrogant, pretentious foreign correspondent who does not hold his tongue in front of upper society; Jennifer's world.

Predictably, the two fall for each other and, predictably, cannot be together. In a time where communication is the written word, letters are written back and forth, beautifully crafted words of longing and hope, desperation and sadness sent back and forth.

As with any good love story, there are insurmountable obstacles and near misses to the couple's happiness and the story ‘almost’ doesn’t end happily ever after. [People, it's a romance novel, it's required to end happily ever after; really.] There is an endearing underlying subplot set in the early 2000s wherein a budding journalist stumbles upon Jennifer and Boot's love letters and in order to save her career and quell her own curiosity, she hunts down the mysterious Jennifer and Boot, forty-years later. Oh, and of course she finds what presumably will be her happily ever after in doing so. It wouldn't be a good love story without this!

As fun as the book is, I’d rather discuss the writing style of Ms. Moyes. In today’s world of fast-paced, quick to press, speed over excellence, it is refreshing to read a well-crafted, grammatically correct, highbrow novel. One that is sexy without smut, hard-hitting without foul language, and intelligent without overreach.

If you are looking for an entertaining, yes, love story, that you could actually wrap your head around and fall into - The Last Letter from Your Lover is the ticket. Nope - I probably won’t watch the movie.