The challenge of the epistolary format is believably including all the necessary details in the letters. Letters from Skye is told as a pair of interwoven epistolary narratives, beginning with letters between Margaret’s mother, Elspeth, and David, an American fan of Elspeth’s poetry in the early years of the Great War, and then continuing with letters between Margaret and Paul in the early 1940s. This glimpse of the past leaves Margaret hungering to know the truth, but then her mother and all the love letters disappear, leaving Margaret to try to put the story together alone. But there is more to it than that when a bomb damages their home, Margaret discovers a cache of love letters in her mother’s room dating from the First World War. When her mother finds out, she begs Margaret not to fall in love, because war makes life so uncertain. When World War II breaks out, Margaret begins an epistolary love affair with her childhood friend Paul, who has gone to war. They have never visited her mother’s childhood home on the Isle of Skye, even though they still have family there. Margaret was raised in Edinburgh by a single mother who never talked about her past, or Margaret’s father. My mother, who has never been away from the house for longer than a few hours, has packed up and left. The wainscoting still gaped open, but every last letter was gone. My stomach was in knots.īut when I got up to the flat, it was empty. All night, I couldn’t sleep a wink, thinking about how we argued and how she pushed me away after those letters came tumbling out of the wall. The morning after the bomb fell, I went back to the house, intending to patch things up.

All quotes are based on an uncorrected text.

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this book at ALA Midwinter 2013.

Letters to skye