As I was reading More Than Love Letters by Rosy Thornton, I kept having to pause in amazement. We all have preferences as readers, certain professions we like to read about, certain setting or clichés we never tire of, you know the sort of thing. If I had listed all of my predilections out prior to reading this book, I would have been able to check off almost the entire list as I paged through it. It was eerie. Earnest, idealistic young heroine who also happens to be a vicar’s daughter? (I am oddly fascinated by vicars). Check. Intelligent, older male hero? (Thornton gets extra points for such a large age gap – seventeen years). Also check. Politicians, teachers, immigrants, women’s groups and a promiscuous best friend to balance our heroine? All conveyed in epistolary form? Seriously people, it’s likeThornton tapped directly into my brain. And the cultural references! A dog named after W.G. Snuffy Walden! A heroine named after Margaret Hale with a best friend called Rebecca, who is not necessarily well pleased at have been named
…after the Daphne du Maurier (or in fact more likely the Hitchcock). Having read the book, at age fifteen, I took her to task about naming me after someone who is so obnoxious, so faithless and philandering, that she ends up drowned for her trouble – and has an extremely questionable relationship with her housekeeper. It seems to have passed Mam by completely that Rebecca wasn’t the name of the heroine.
There’s even a reference to Anne Shirley’s Miss Stacy. Surely that cannot be improved upon?
When MP Richard Slater begins receiving letters from a constituent on an odd and eclectic array of local issues, he dismisses them as the ramblings of some crackpot. After all, surely with a name like Margaret she’s some old biddy with too much time on her hands and an ornery disposition. But Margaret Hayton is in fact an energetic young teacher, determined to improve the world, whether it be by demanding action from her MP or by throwing herself into her volunteer work with WITCH (Women of Ipswich Together Combating Homelessness). When the two finally meet, Richard is instantly smitten and with his cynicism challenged by Margaret’s convictions, he finds himself not just in love but entangled in the plight of a young Albanian refugee.
More Than Love Letters is an interesting mix of literary conventions, part old-fashioned love story, part political satire, all thoroughly imbued with a feminist message. The romance between Margaret and Richard is actually quite straightforward. They both like one another from their first meeting and their relationship progresses very naturally, never quite take center stage over the other dramas at play in the novel. And that is one of the problems: no one storyline every really seems to form at the center of the book. With so many characters, many actively involved in the storytelling as letter writers themselves, you become invested in all of their tales. You care about Margaret’s friend Bec’s misadventures in love. You are hopeful for the women in the WITCH house; their very real troubles provide an unexpectedly dark dose of reality in what I had expected to be a relatively light read. You grow attached to Margaret’s grandmother and intrigued by her landlady, Cora. Such confusion of focus is one of the perils of epistolary novels but it does make the story seem more real. In real life, such a disparate group of people really do have a number of different problems all operating on the same timeline. Things do not magically converge around a pair of lovers, nor do their lives or problems stop just because they are trying to come to terms with a new relationship.
I had a lot of fun reading this and was delighted by how many surprises it offered. I had been intrigued by it for some time and troubled that my library did not have a copy (as I’m sure we all know by now, I have difficulty convincing myself to purchase anything I haven’t already read). I finally broke down and bought a second-hand copy and I am delighted that I did – a very worthy $7 investment! Now I shall forever have to hand a sweet and original novel that perfectly encapsulates so many of my reading preferences.
I’ve read two books by Rosy Thornton now and think she’s an excellent writer. This one sound like a lot of fun so I must see if my library has it sometime.
Super review! That sounds like such a fun read – I shall have to look out for it.
Oh I loved this book – it is my favourite of all of her books, I think because it ticks so many of my reading boxes too.
You should send a link to this review to Rosy Thornton. I think there’s high probabilities that you’ll like each other 🙂 I love it when an author seems to speak directly to you like that. I usually feel it with E. M. Foster.
“…part old-fashioned love story, part political satire, all thoroughly imbued with a feminist message.”
Now that’s certainly a combo that appeals to me. Unlike you, however, a big age gap between the lovers, with the man being on the high side, signals points against for me. (1 point for each year over 5.)
But I’ll happily take a look for it.
Durn. No Rosy Thornton at TPL.
Oh, but look! Thornton! As in John Thornton of Milton Northern. Coincidence?
Wow, this sounds great! I, too, like epistolary novels. It just makes things more interesting. I will definitely have to check this book out. Thanks!
I received a review copy of Tapestry of Love recently and really must start on it soon. I keep hearing such good things about Rosy Thornton! I’ll have to suggest this one to the library if they don’t have it already. Great review!
What a coincidence – I picked this book up in a charity shop the other day. I’ve read one other of her books and enjoyed that so I’m looking forward to it.
Sounds like an absolutely wonderful book! While epistolary novels aren’t usually up my alley, what with all the other wonderful aspects you described, I’m guessing that this one might just be worth putting that aside. Thanks for the great review!
PS: I don’t know how much of a pop culture junkie you are, but the minute you mentioned “vicars” it immediately made me think of an episode of Friends in which Joey, having found and read one of Rachel’s romance novels, dresses up as a vicar to mock her. However, he has no idea what a vicar is and ends up dressing like a hockey player. lol…just thought I’d share that tidbit of the random!
This sounds like such a fun read! I am definitely adding it to my Kindle. As soon as I saw the word Vicar I thought of that wonderful show The Vicar of Dibley and had a laugh. Such a great review – can’t wait to read me some Rosy Thornton.
I have found myself becoming a fan of the epistolary style of writing as of late. This review has certainly commanded my attention. I have never read Thornton but now I am certainly intrigued!
I loved Tapestry of Love but not her previous novel – the title of which escapes me and I’m too lazy this evening to trek upstairs to the room where I keep hardback fiction (down here it’s non fiction in the study, paperback in the dining room and so forth) and as I love epistolary novels, this might well be up my street, too. Thanks for such a great review.
Margaret P
Margaret, I assume you must mean either “Crossed Wires” or “Hearts and Minds” both of which could be classed as campus novels, the latter especially. I loved them both. Just as Claire has a soft spot for novels featuring vicars, I am rather keen on books about awkward academics (which is not what I am, well not by profession at any rate!) Actually, the male lead in “Hearts and Minds” is neither awkward nor an academic, more of an academic administrator who was previously a BBC journalist. It was written before the former controller of BBC Radio 4 went to become the head of an Oxford college.
I really like the sound of “More than love letters”, though that cover would put me off. It’s not really a machismo thing, I wouldn’t want to roam about town with a book that had a tank or AK47 on the front either. I find it disappointing when publishers insist on covers that suggest a book is only for a narrow target audience, be that fluffy female or aggressive male.
Another one to watch out for. Don’t you just love it when you take a chance on buying a book and it turns out this right? I agree with you that when you find one that “checks all your boxes” it’s worth every penny you pay for it. 🙂 Thanks for the review.
Woo! This book sounds right down my alley as well. I’m going to have to pick it up!
I’d love to get my hands on this book! Thank you for this review.
Hello, Claire – I’m just popping by (after a friend pointed out your review) to say thank you so much for reading my book, and for your lovely, generous comments. Obviously we share certain preoccupations and literary ‘mental furniture’! It is especially nice to come across somebody still reading my first book – five years out in the world now and, I have tended to assume, long lost and forgotten.
Thank you, too, to everyone else who has left comments saying kind things about my books.
David, your comment about the cover of ‘More Than Love Letters’ struck a chord with me. I remember we had quite a tussle about it; my agent (male), who was after all the first one to believe in the book enough to take it on, told my publisher what a pity it would be if other men were put off from reading it. It is, I suppose, a love story, a novel mainly about women, and even perhaps even (as Claire says in her review) a feminist novel. But I hope that male readers would enjoy it, and never felt that a cover sprinkled with hearts and butterflies really represented what was inside. (There are, as I recall, absolutely no butterflies in the book – though some headlice do make an appearance at one point.)
Authors, however, do not choose their covers – or even the titles their books are given. It’s all down to the publisher’s marketing team – and is not so much about the book itself as about what might attract the buyers from the supermarkets and major bookshop chains. Thus is the way of the world.
“Authors, however, do not choose their covers – or even the titles their books are given. … Thus is the way of the world.”
Indeed. Ultimately it could be enough to convert me to the e-reader for some of my reading, since they appear to give the author more control and, surprisingly, the ability to earn more than from even a full price paperback sale. That said, in the longer term a sympathetic publisher acting as middleman (or woman) *could* well be a better friend to authors than a certain online retailer with a name like a river.
I’ve no desire to knock the entire marketing profession, but it seems to me that things took a turn for the worse when they stopped finding the right audience for good products and started dictating what the product should be in the first place.
I really enjoyed this, too.
@SusanD – Visit Rosy’s website to see how the links between North & South and Richard Armitage tie in.
Bless you Claire! This does sound just like it worked for you. Then again, Her Fearful Symmetry ticked off several of my book-loves (twins, Gothic house, something a bit weird going on, madness) but I still didn’t like it at all. Strange.
I’ve got to say, big age gaps creep me out in novels, although in real life I’m more accepting (!) – and vicars don’t fascinate me because I know one very well 😉
I really wanted to write this comment to say tut tut to Rosy Thornton for giving away the plot of Rebecca in her novel!