The Lost Letters of William Woolf

April 1, 2018

In a debut recalling Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop, lost letters end up at the Dead Letters Depot, where letter detectives survey missing zip codes, illegible handwriting, smudgy ink, lost labels, and left-off street names to find the recipients. One detective becomes enthralled with the mystery surrounding correspondence addressed only to "My Great Love." With an 80,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2019
William Woolf works in East London's Dead Letters Depot, where he spends his days sifting through bags of mail to reunite lost letters with their rightful owners. Helping these strangers provides William with tremendous satisfaction and distraction from his own troubles: his strained marriage, his unfulfilled dreams, and his lingering writer's block. William discovers a series of letters a woman named Winter has sent to a "great love," her soul mate. While William navigates his dissolving marriage to Clare, he increasingly yearns to find new love with Winter. These strands of his life beginning to merge, William embarks on a journey to understand true love and rediscover his place in the world. In her mesmerizing debut, one of Cullen's many gifts is skillfully managing the voices, stories, and possibilities of the enchanting world of lost letters. In alternating chapters, Cullen allows William and Clare, both well-developed characters, to present their sides of the story. While the abrupt ending might leave readers wondering, it does little to distract from the beauty of Cullen's writing and the power of the story. This moving treatise on love and the art of letter writing will leave readers eager for more from this very talented writer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)