An easy read with a quirky cast of characters. I would have enjoyed more about the dead letters and their stories as I found them fascinating! To be able to deliver letters and parcels, with barely a legible address, to their rightful recipients, using nothing but intuition and good detective skills would be a very satisfying occupation. ( )

hmmm...I have to admit this book caught my eye because I loved the show "Signed, Sealed, Delivered". It is nothing like it and I never should have assumed it would have been. This melancholy read is about a person who works in the same type of scenario but takes it too far and comes close to hurting the people around him. I found it to be rather depressing. ( )

Thoroughly enjoyed this story of William Woolf’s and those who are in his life. The relationships felt so very real, and the descriptive language was utterly delightful to experience. The story played out at a good pace, and I struggled to put the book down. ( )

There is something so very magical about receiving letters through the mail, an event that happens far too infrequently in this day and age of email and text messaging, but cast your mind back 30 years into the era of The Lost Letters of William Woolf and experience the magic of handwritten letters.

I was vaguely aware of the UK having a 'dead letter office'; a place were undelivered mail is attempted to be passed to the intended recipient or returned to the original sender. It's actually really fascinating when you google this and I was astounded to read about a postcard sent to Aberdeen, Scotland from Queensland, Australia in 1889 but was delivered more than a century later in 2001.

I rather liked the character of William Woolf; he seems pretty comfortable in his own skin and likes the comfort of cardigans, despite it making him appear older than his years. William is an aspiring writing and takes a job in the Dead Letter Depot until his inspiration to write returns but it is clear that William loves his job of reuniting mail with its rightful owners and his book remains unwritten, something that he has kept hidden from his wife, Clare. This isn't the only clue that the marriage is in difficulty though; after several years of marriage, William and Clare have gotten out of sync and both are wondering if their marriage is worth saving.

It's no surprise that William latches on to letters from Winter, addressed to 'My Great Love', when he is feeling so lost. Feeling that connection to somebody doesn't come along that often so William is determined to track down Winter but, as time goes on, it is more a case of revealing himself as her great love than reuniting her with her lost mail. William has to choose between his tangible wife Clare and his imaginary idea of Winter; it sounds like a no-brainer but William Woolf's life is a lot more complicated than that.

Ultimately, this is a story of a marriage in difficulty but Helen Cullen injects a bit of magic and warmth into the story by setting part of it in the Dead Letter Depot. Some of the stories of items passing William's desk were very moving and one in particular actually brought a lump to my throat. It gave the story a nice weighting as we switched from the despair of William's marriage to the joy he brings to recipients through his job. If only he could transfer his job to his life, then everyone could live happily ever after, although this rarely happens in real life.

The Lost Letters of William Woolf is a beautifully written debut, sparkling with the natural lyricism that Irish authors are blessed with. I suspect that people will be talking about The Lost Letters of William Woolf for a long time to come and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for Helen Cullen's next book.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion. ( )

There is a song called Escape or The Pina Colada Song by Rupert Holmes. That is the soundtrack of this book for me. If you know the song, you know how that story ends. The question is ... how does the story of William Woolf end? I am little disappointed that the story is not more about the Dead Letter Depot. It is rather a quiet exploration of what it means to love in the context of a long-term marriage.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2019/09/the-lost-letters-of-william-woolf.html

Reviewed for NetGalley. ( )