This epistolary novel begins with a letter from Anne-Lise Briard, who discovers a manuscript in her French hotel room. She returns the item to the author, who writes back that he has not been to that hotel. He lost the pages on an airplane in Canada decades before, but the story was unfinished.

The mystery of who finished the tale seizes Anne-Lise, so she begins a quest to find the people who have come into contact with the manuscript in the years after its loss. Each letter slowly unfolds the story of the manuscript throughout the 30 years between its original loss and Anne-Lise's discovery.

When compared to a wonderful epistolary novel like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this book falls short. It could perhaps be because the story is not as fraught with danger and tragedy as the World War II tale. It also requires some suspension of disbelief to think that people are still hand-writing letters in 2016.

Most of the narrators have French accents, which adds to the authenticity of the letters being read. Unfortunately, this also means that some of the pronunciation of English words is at times odd. There is less emotion across the board than you would expect from a traditional narrative, probably because each chapter is a letter instead of description and dialogue. The audiobook is short enough to complete on a road trip or a workday.

Recommended for Francophiles and fans of epistolary novels.

This one has an interesting premise & I liked the concept. Not sure if it’s really a romance & I felt it sorta lacked actual romance...maybe its because of how many characters there are. I think it would have been better described as fiction. I really enjoyed the audio, it was an easy quick listen & I appreciated the accents of the characters which was a nice touch. I usually listen at a 1.75 speed-2, and think that it would
best be listened to at a slower speed to fully enjoy the narrators. I did also enjoy that it was written in form of letters which was nice way to go about a book like this. Overall it was a lovely quick listen audio book.

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but about half way in, i was struggling to get through the other half.

Characters ended up being too many by the end and it was getting increasingly difficult to remember who is who and where they are from.
Anne-Lise was not a good character. Very aggressive and obsessive. After being told to stop pursuing her want regarding the manuscript (by the author, of all people) she just basically continues, not really caring about other people.
She was very one dimensional and it was impossible to make a connection with her.

This book is an epistolary novel and i usually love those, but this one really didn't do anything for me.