This revolves around letters supposedly written and received by eight-year-old Andromeda, in traction in a hospital with a broken femur. It's a kind of sequel to 'The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass age 37 3/4'.

Andromeda’s spelling is erratic, as might be expected of a child her age, and she makes amusing mistakes in words. There’s an underlying story, too: Andromeda’s parents have separated, and neither of them is visiting their daughter. So Adrian and Anne Plass encourage members of their church to write letters to her.

Andromeda also writes letters to world leaders, both political and religious. As the book progresses she grows up a little, and begins to understand the idea of God, although this is quite low key.

It could be read as a standalone book, although a lot of the humour might be lost if a reader had not already met some of the correspondents in the earlier book. More of a problem for readers under the age of about fifty is that many of the politicians and issues were contemporary to the UK in the late 1980s, so some of the humour could be lost entirely.

I enjoyed it very much, however.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-horizontal-epistles-of-andromed... ( )