The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright by Beth Miller

☆☆☆☆☆
Kindle Edition, 327 pages
Expected publication: January 9th 2020 by Bookouture
About the Book:
You’ve met Mrs Bright. She’s that nice woman who lives three doors down and always smiles at you in the mornings. She’s planning her thirtieth wedding anniversary with her husband. She wants to travel, read endless books and take beautiful pictures. She’s been waiting for this forever. For the past twenty-nine years, Kay Bright’s days have had a familiar rhythm: she works in her husband’s stationery shop, cooks for her family, tries to remember to practice yoga, and every other month she writes to her best friend, Ursula, and Ursula replies. Kay could set her calendar by their letters: her heart lifts when the blue airmail envelope, addressed in Ursula’s slanting handwriting, falls gently onto the mat. Ursula is the only one who knows Kay’s deepest secret, something that happened decades ago that could tear Kay’s life apart today. Ursula has always been the person Kay relies on. Knowing she will hear from Ursula is like being sure the sun will rise tomorrow. And now Ursula has stopped writing. Three missing letters doesn’t sound like a lot, but Kay gets out her shoebox of notes from her best friend, in case there’s something she overlooked. Ursula seems fine, but the further back she goes, the more Kay begins to question every choice she has made in her life. Which might be why, at ten o’clock one morning, Kay walks out of her yellow front door with a just a rucksack, leaving her wedding ring on the table.

I love Beth Miller's writing. The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom became one of my favourite books this year and The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright did not disappoint. This is a journey that perhaps most of us on some level understand and relate to, and that is what makes this story so enjoyable. I admit that I am always a bit skeptical when books are compared to other books that I loved, but I often can't resist reading them to see if the claim holds true. In this case I'm happy to say that it does. This book has been touted to...Fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, A Man Called Ove and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. And though they are all VERY different books they are all also very good books! Kay, however, has her own charm and personality as she should.

The main character is extremely well developed and as you read about her journeys you start to understand and sympathize with her. I found the writing to be solid and well done. It's an easy read because it is so immersing and I found it to be so very heartwarming. I loved the beautiful language and felt I was there with Kay while she traveled. A sweet, kind-hearted, and ultimately hopeful novel about the difference between the way we live and the way we hoped to live. Endearing characters and a very original plot filled with unexpected moments make this book a pleasure and a gift.

Thank you NetGalley, Beth Miller and Bookouture for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

#TheMissingLettersofMrsBright #NetGalley