Seven Letters: A Novel

by J P Monninger

The Blasket Islands are the heart of Ireland - once populated with some of the most famous Irish writers, they are now abandoned, filled with nothing but wind and silence. Kate Moreton, a PhD student at Dartmouth, is in Ireland to research the history of the Blaskets, not to fall in love. She has a degree to finish and a life back in New Hampshire that she is reluctant to leave.

But fall in love she does, with both the wild, windswept landscape and with Ozzie, a Irish-American fisherman with a troubled past who shares her deep, aching love for the land. Together, they begin to build a life on the rocky Irish coast. But when tragedy strikes, leading Kate on a desperate search through Europe, the limits of their love and faith in each other will be tested.

• ISBN10: 1250187699
• ISBN13: 9781250187697
• Publish Date: 1 November 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 11 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Saint Martin's Griffin,U.S.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[chymerra]

3.5 stars

I don’t know why I kept putting this book off!!! Well, I understand why. Life got in the way, and it wasn’t at the top of my priority list, which happens to the best of us. So, when I realized that I missed the publication date (huge oops!!), I took Seven Letters off of the backburner and read it. It was a good read, and I really should have read it sooner.

Seven Letters went between having a fast-paced plotline, and a medium paced one. That did aggravate me while reading. It provoked me because I like my books to have one speed while reading. If I have to adjust my reading speed continuously, then it takes away from my experience. I also didn’t like that several secondary storylines were either ended abruptly or left hanging.

I liked Kate, but she annoyed me during the book. The choices she made were a huge source of irritation for me. Take her relationship with Ozzie, for instance. She knew he had issues (drinking, possible PTSD), and she jetted once the honeymoon phase was over. But, she did change. Her character matured, and she realized that her choices weren’t the right ones. By the end of the book, she was a different woman, and I liked it.

I felt terrible for Ozzie. But at the same time, I wanted to shake him and say, “Dude, get help!!”. He never told Kate about his time in the service (in his defense, though, she never asked). He never told her about his demons from that time. I do think that he was the better person when he let her go. He knew that his demons were too strong, and he couldn’t live with himself. He needed that time apart to heal.

The romance angle of the book got me. Kate and Ozzie burned fast and bright in the beginning. It was almost too quick and bright, and I knew that something was going to happen. By the second half of the book, they were floundering, and I did wonder if they would ever get past everything. But the end of the book, oh my. Talk about deep romance there. I was in tears from the minute Kate landed in Ireland to the very end.

The end of the book was hard to read. It got almost too much for me to read. I did guess at some of the ending details. The last letter, though, made my heart sing (and I did shed a few tears).