As the title suggests, this novel consists of a collection of letters all dealing with some kind of loss. There are three main couples involved: In Cork (1969), a Russian painter and his novelist wife who must come to grips with a terminal illness; Perth in 2011 where a bookstore owner writes to her estranged partner trying to fathom what went wrong with their relationship; and Bournemouth in 1948 where a retired doctor writes to his partner who never made it through the war.

These three couples are all vaguely connected through art, war and parallel imagery. I found this to be quite a clever literary tool. It makes lives that seem so random suddenly seem part of some grand plan. All couples have memories involving the artist or artwork of Paul Klee. I also found the imagery of diving and of watches (time) to be quite effective.

Dreams are also of a great importance in the novel and are described vividly. I suppose when love is lost; dreams are sometimes all you have left.

The novel is beautifully written. It is soulful and sorrowful. As a reader you can feel the yearning in Walker’s words; the heartbreak over lost love. There is not really any plot at all – these are simply a collection of love letters. So I don’t think this will appeal to the general reading public.

One aspect I didn’t really enjoy was the graphic sex scene. Please let me state that I am by no means a prude, I appreciate that sometimes to go into great detail about lovemaking is necessary. It just seemed so out of place in this novel. There are these beautiful and lyrical descriptions of love then all of a sudden BANG! (excuse the pun) and we are into 50 Shades of Grey. I just didn’t think it fitted into the novel’s gentle themes.

Overall a beautifully written novel without much of a storyline.
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A lovely meditation on love, in the form of letters between three couples from different eras and places. The structure took me a little while to settle into - a few tenuous links between the stories had me looking for deeper connections which weren't there - but I eventually realised that the three stories were only thematically linked. In each, people are facing the end of love - through illness, death or estrangement, and the letters they write to each other dig into their rich, messy, passionate experiences with each other and with life, as well as into the tiny, ordinary details that make up a relationship. It's impressively done. ( )

The perfect antidote to the sadly awful The Light Between Oceans, I am stunned that this superb book has not been widely lauded, and cannot thank enough the friend who sent this my way as a birthday present.

Three narratives sit lightly side by side, not so much connected as shades of each other. They are presented in the form of a series of letters between lovers: a pair of current day Perth women whose relationship has recently been fraying around the edges attempt to find their way back to each other through letters; in 1960s Cork an Irish writer and her Russian painter husband who has recently received diagnosis of a fatal condition leave each other love letters each day, exploring their shared past and cherishing their last days together; and a retired English doctor in 1948 Bournemouth writes tenderly to and of his lost lover, a young German man who, it soon becomes apparent, did not survive World War Two.

I honestly can't praise this too highly, and feel almost wordless in the face of such beauty. The quality of the writing is fabulously good: insightful, gorgeous, eloquent and enormously touching without being syrupy. If it were in my power to give this book ALL THE LITERARY PRIZES I would do so without a qualm.

I have underlined nuggets of particular brilliance, but really the whole thing is an absolute, scintillating gem. Here are some to be going along with, but I urge you all more strongly than I can express to buy, beg, borrow, steal this; read it by any means necessary.

As you say, my heart is collapsing in a strange, slow way, like old beliefs worn away. (The Cork Letters)

I have the ghost of you pressing against my ribs like deep water. (The Bournemouth Letters)

I remember watching you sleep, watching you dream, wondering what you were dreaming about. It's been one of the reasons I've stayed through the unhappiness, one of the many reasons I stayed, as there was so much love there, in the middle of the night, when nothing else had to be done, or said. It was the perfect time to uncover how much you loved a person, you could feel it, just there, hitting at the wall of your heart like a small butterfly, so delicate you missed it in every other hour. (The Perth Letters)

I sit here now, having reviewed my under-linings, filled with loveliness and some small tears. Good, good, good. ( )