By: J. P. Monninger
3 out of 5
Release Date: October 2019
Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin’sPress for sending me an ARC of SEVEN LETTERS, in exchange for an honest review.
SYNOPSIS
Kate Moreton is a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth who travels to Ireland to research the Blasket Islands for her dissertation. Immediately upon arriving in Ireland, Kate meets Ozzie, an Irish-American fisherman. Kate and Ozzie quickly fall in love and bond over their shared affection for Ireland. SEVEN LETTERS is the story of Kate, Ozzie, tragedy, and love.
MY THOUGHTS
Romance novels are not my first genre choice but I do pick them up when looking for a lighter, no thinking required book between “heavier” stories. Having said that, the synopsis of SEVEN LETTERS piqued my interest.
I finished SEVEN LETTERS feeling the same as I did when recently finishing NEXT YEAR IN HAVANA- solid story that had the potential to be really good. I found SEVEN LETTERS to be unnecessarily wordy and by the 50% mark, veering away from the original feel and tone of the book.
SEVEN LETTERS is branded as a romance novel. I expect romance novels to be fluff. Mindless, easy reads. I really thought and hoped SEVEN LETTERS would be that. In reality, SEVEN LETTERS is a mashup of love story and historical-ish women fiction, topped off with a humanitarian crisis, and sprinkled with pieces of a recent war. Halfway through, SEVEN LETTERS morphed into a story of mediocre characters and a kinda far out there, plot which became distracting and uninteresting.
My final issue with SEVEN LETTERS- the title and cover do not, in any way, fit the overall theme and mood of the book.
Overall, SEVEN LETTERS isn’t a horrible read. It’s not a great read. SEVEN LETTERS is an unmemorable read that had the potential to be really good but missed the mark.
