When I first heard about this book I thought it sounded enchanting and really wanted to read it. William Woolfe works in the lost letters department of the post office in London where a small team of people endeavour to get letters that are incorrectly or ambiguously addressed to the intended recipients.
William has been married to Clare for some years and their marriage has become somewhat stale. When William comes across a series of letters from a woman called Winter addressed to a mystery man who is the love of her life he is intrigued and sets out to find her.
William is a lovely character, warm, kind and loving but Clare annoyed me. She seemed to take William totally for granted.
I love a book that is a slow-burn read but at times this was so slow it stopped..
The ending was weird and I didn't understand it at all. Very disappointed with a book that I thought would be a page turning pleasure.

I loved the cover, and the description of the novel was intriguing, but the novel was not as intriguing as I'd hoped. I found it hard to get into, and the characters too whimsical to care about, but I'm sure that others will enjoy it.

This book revolves around William Woolf's job in the lost letters department and his search to reunite certain letters with their owners. On top of this he becomes enthralled by the writer of a series of a letters that seem to be searching for love and perhaps he thinks he can provide that. His own marriage is on rocky ground and this forms a second thread of the narrative.

This book took me so long to get into it that i seriously considered giving up. Neither part of the narrative moves with any speed or force and I am not sure that the "lost letters" idea every fully emerges. It could have been so much more. The second half moves with more pace and the characters seem to develop flesh and design. It turned out to be a reasonably well written romance although with, perhaps, the most hurried ending ever.

As a debut novel it has promise of perhaps better to come. I think the ending could be more polished

William Woolf is a letter detective at the lost letters depot in East London. Everyday he delves into sacks of post and solves, decodes and de-riddles the stories behind missing parcels and missives in a bid to return them to their true owners. He has the ability to mend raggedy hearts, restore lost hope and change unsuspecting lives. To the boy who wants to run away and join the circus to escape his cruel father, William gives the possibility of a new life. For the woman who aches to see her lover, he gives the opportunity that was missed so long ago, the date and location to meet again, this time a missing letter no longer keeping them part. For the weary souls who write to the unknown for help, he gives silent hope that their struggles are being heard and even in some small way recognised.







Hundreds of lost letters and voices brush across his desk and weave through his thoughts. He translates the illegible handwriting, tracks down recipients and sends letters back to the ones who miss them. With every letter comes the chance of salving broken hearts and reuniting people but a solution to his own predicament seems to be nonexistent. His relationship with wife Clare is crumbling. Like so many of the postage stamps on the letters that pass through his fingertips, the bond they shared is peeling away and despite all attempts at remedying it, they will not stick.







The couple who danced and joked and blasted out karaoke songs together have given way to cool disconnection. Clare feels she has lost herself in the depths of supporting William for so long. The creativity and artistry she was once so proud of has disintegrated. She misses who she used to be, misses the old William but isn’t sure if she can salvage their marriage. William is lonely. Afraid that one wrong move will destroy their life together and the memories they made along with it. When a letter, addressed to ‘My Great Love’ appears in his sack of post, he senses instantly it is different from the rest. In the author’s words he begins to recognise pieces of himself and wonders if perhaps he could be that great love. As more letters arrive, it seems as if fate itself is designing it. But for William everything is at stake.







The Lost Letters of William Woolf was recommended to me a little while ago so when I was invited to join the blog tour I jumped at the chance. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about this book. It’s a poignant, charming, compelling, gorgeously written book that is a meditation on love, discovery and possibility. It is also testament to the power of the written word and letter writing. Helen Cullen’s characters and poetic prose is simply stunning. I loved it!





Poignant. Compelling. Charming.

The Lost Letters of William Woolf follows William in his job at the dead letters depot and his home life with his wife Clare, with whom he is a disappointment to, leading her to an unfulfilled life.

One day William receives a letter at the depot marked to 'my great love', which give him small clues as to her identity. Then a few more come, all reaching him so he sees it as a sign to seek out this woman. In the meantime, his wifes resentment fills her more and she leaves for a few days to get away from it all.

Its a story that focuses more on the dissatisfaction in the lives of William and Clare rather than the lost letters depot and its investigations. There are a few packages and letters that are reunited with the intended recipient which are interesting. I did wonder at one point if these letters were like the song 'Escape (the Pina Colada Song)' which I guess to a degree it is.

I wish it had focused more on the depot investigations rather than the lives if the characters and their messy lives.

I was instantly intrigued by the premise of this story. I loved the idea of the dead letters depot, staffed by letter detectives working to return lost mail to their rightful owners. I would absolutely love to be a letter detective, so much so I can’t bring myself to research whether this ever was an actual, real job once. I couldn’t bear to have missed out on such an interesting job because I was born in the wrong decade!
As the plot unravelled I became enthralled. I was so heavily invested in the love story of William and Clare, and then so intrigued to read more letters from the mysterious Winter. I was desperate to find out who she was and whether William would find her.
As characters, William and Clare were very flawed but also very lovable. I was rooting for their marriage and shaking my head in despair every time they did something to damage the chances of them fixing their issues. I felt like I knew them both intimately by the time I was a third of the way through the story and I think this is because of the incredibly beautiful and almost melodic way of writing Helen Cullen has.
Personally, I found the ending a bit disappointing. As I got nearer the end I could feel that I wasn’t going to get the neat, tidy ending I was yearning for. The number of pages I had left didn’t tally with the amount of story that still needed to be reconciled. I feel a bit cheated that we never got to properly “meet” Winter and that we didn’t get to see William and Clare’s reconciliation.
Overall though, I loved this beautifully written book and will be highly recommending it to many people.

William Woolf works in the Dead Letters Dept trying to piece clues together to so that mail gets to where it was intended. At one time he was all set to be an author but somewhere along the line he has lost his ability to get words down on paper. He met his wife, Claire, when attempting to start a book club. They had a lot in common & although William stuck with the 'Arts' Claire, being of a more practical nature went into law. Now after many years of marriage the cracks are showing.

When William comes across a dead letter addressed to 'My Great Love' it firstly appeals to his romantic soul, but as more letters appear he becomes obsessed with finding the mysterious 'Winter' . Claire at the same time begins to wonder if they have any future together.

I loved the idea of the Dead Letter Dept but felt that it was an opportunity wasted. It could have been a rich hoard of stories, instead it became rather a tedious story of a marriage in crisis that seemed to have a rushed ending. All in all I felt like this was a missed opportunity of a good book.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read & review this book.

More melancholy love story than lost-letter mystery. 3.5/5 stars.

The premise is possibly the most captivating element of this book: William’s job as a sort of lost letter detective is brilliant. The couple of times he manages to reunite parcels with their intended recipients were the highlights of the story for me. In fact, I could have read an entire book just about his parcel/letter sleuthing! And William’s particular obsession – people who address letters to supernatural entities such as God – was fascinating and a great choice. However, rather than taking centre stage (as I would have liked), the Lost Letter Office is just one backdrop to the over-arching story of William and Clare’s troubled marriage.

I found it to be a quiet, rather melancholy tale. “Quiet” probably because there’s not much talking! Most of the novel happens in Clare and William's heads (narrated in further-distancing third person). The direct voices come most often in epistolary format (unsurprisingly!), which disembodies them. I think I’m very fond of “talky” books with lots of dialogue and would have liked a little more chatter and slightly less reflection. Of course, the lack of talking does make sense, as we can see one of the main reasons the main relationship has struggled is because communication between husband and wife has broken down, but it doesn’t help to bring the reader closer to the characters.

The central “mystery” of the book – a woman writing to her as yet undiscovered “Great Love” – is good, although I wondered if it was stretched a little thin.

I enjoyed the late 80s/early 90s setting (I wasn’t sure of the exact year, but don’t think it really matters) and thought it was a good choice. I’m not sure the same story would work in a present day setting where the Lost Letter Office employees could Google everything and several of them would be out of work thanks to far fewer people sending proper letters. Indeed, many plot points rely on characters only having landline phones, missing calls and having to rely on answerphone messages.

Overall: an excellent, intriguing concept but the struggling relationship at the heart of the book didn’t interest me as much as the lost letters which could have been the stars of the story.

There was a good concept behind this book but I found that it was a bit too heavy on the facts for my liking. Still a good story though.

This was a lovely nostalgic read set in the 80's when I distinctly remember moving away from my friends and writing letters every week.

A gentle paced book which was heartwarming to read as it explored the relationship in a marriage, the depths of love and complexities of navigating married life and life as individuals.

I was looking forward to reading this book from its description however I did feel a little let down by the fact that it’s more a book about a marriage in trouble, than the character and his job at the lost letters depot.

William works for the post office as a letter detective, trying to forward mail onto it’s destination that has become lost. Ie the envelope has been damaged a therefore the address is unreadable. I was thinking I was going to read a book a little like the keeper of lost things where we would here about the stories behind the letters and how William finds where they need to be sent onto to. However this book is mainly about his marriage about to possibly break down, and how he gets obsessed about one women who writes letters in the present that seem to turn up at the depot whenever he looks for one. We also hear narrative from the wife. I finished the book and give it 3 stars but it wasn’t what I was expecting and I also found the ending a little sudden.
I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

From the description, I was expecting this book to concentrate a lot more on the attempts of William and his fellow ‘letter detectives’ to reunite the ‘lost letters’ of the title with their intended recipients. (The one ‘reunion’ we do get to witness, of an object with someone very significant for its previous owner, I found so touching.) Personally, I would also have liked to learn a bit more about William’s colleagues as we get only teasing insights into their own particular, idiosyncratic interests – Trevor and his philately, Marjorie with her lonely hearts, and so on. I found myself thinking how much easier it would be today with access to the Internet but, as the book is set in 1989, the letter detectives have to rely on telephone directories, other paper-based research methods and not a little gut instinct. Incidentally, I loved the description of the Dead Letters Depot as ‘this museum of missed messages’.

What I did enjoy was the reminder of a time when people communicated in writing and, from the evidence of some of the lost letters William deals with, weren’t afraid to express their feelings honestly and eloquently. William himself wonders, ‘How much would be left unsaid if people were devoid of the opportunity that pen and paper offered to speak from a safe distance?’ Really this epitomises the issue at the heart of the problems William and his wife, Clare, are experiencing in their relationship. I have to say at this point that I thought the way the author explores the ups and downs of their marriage shows great insight and is the real achievement of this book.

It’s a portrait of a marriage that has gone slightly astray between two people who, when it comes to it, still care for each other. William and Clare have lost the ability to communicate openly and honestly about their feelings, their hopes and ambitions. Clare recalls, ‘In the past, theirs had been a gentle love, not prone to arguments, accusations, recriminations.’ But now, ‘Their words rushed at each other like foot soldiers, focused only on their own purpose: not to listen, just to be heard.’ William and Clare have allowed the freedom and joy of their early years together – parties, madcap adventures, laughter and shared interests – to be replaced with the dull, drudgery of domestic life: whose turn is it to put out the bins, who was supposed to buy fresh milk, when is that mirror finally going to get put up on the wall? Those who have been in a relationship for any length of time will probably recognise this (although will hopefully have found ways to overcome it).

William’s discovery of the letters addressed to ‘My Great Love’ really brings home to him the disappointing change in his relationship with Clare. After all, wasn’t Clare once his ‘Great Love’? But is she still? The reader gets a sense that part of the problem may be William is still surprised even after all these years that the beautiful, talented Clare should have chosen him. Clare’s frustration with their relationship takes her in a different direction fuelled partly by childhood experiences that haunt her, chiefly a fear (without any real evidence to support it) that she will make the same mistakes as her mother.

I loved the concept of the ‘letter detectives’ and, although I didn’t get as much of their detective work as I’d hoped for, I admired the insightful way the author explored the stresses and strains of the relationship between William and Clare. Although I enjoyed the book, I confess to being left a little perplexed, and slightly let down, by its open-ended conclusion. I guess it does allow the reader to write their own ending for William and Clare. I know the one I wanted. (3.5 stars)

I received an advance review copy courtesy of publishers, Michael Joseph, and NetGalley in return for an honest and unbiased review.

William and Clare Woolfe met at university and got married. They settle into marriage and also working life and over time the dreams they had at university gradually diminish. Life and work becomes a routine.

This story is told from the perspective of both Clare and William and I got to learn more about them as individuals as well as a couple. Clare has a successful career in law, though her original love is of art. William works in the Lost Letters Dept of the Post Office, just a temporary job until he became an author, this job now seems rather permanent.

William’s job entails him finding the recipients of those letters that have been wrongly addressed, address is missing or damaged. One day he finds a distinctive envelope and letter and is very taken with it, wanting to more about it and its author.

As his investigations with the letter progress I found another story, that of William and Clare. They are caught in that rut of routine in their marriage. They are a normal couple living normal lives but that have just lost that bit of sparkle.

So essentially you are given two stories, that of the letter and that of the marriage. This is where I may be right off the mark but, I think it’s like a comparison of what the perfect relationship in a letter is against actual relationships. The letter, or I should say letters as there are several, are beautiful in their sentiments and wording. They talk of dreams and plans for the future and for happiness and love. William and Clare have lost their youthful and exciting dreams, and though they still love each other they are frayed and fraught.

Life and the way you see it can sometimes narrow into a tunnel, it doesn’t allow you to see the bigger picture. At times we need to step out of our comfort zone of routine, rotas and timetables and experience new things, visit new places and above all dream. The letters allow William to do that.

So this is a book that is almost an enigma from the synopsis. I thought I would be reading about the letters that had gone astray, and while they do play a part in the story it is not all the story is. Once I realised what was happening I was able to enjoy the story of William and Clare and their lives as individuals and as a couple.

It is a gentle paced story that is quiet and thoughtful, not quite what I expected given the synopsis but non the less I thoroughly enjoyed. A book that I would recommend to readers of contemporary and literary fiction and is a beautiful story that I would definitely recommend.

Set in 1980s London, long before mobile phones and the internet, this beautifully crafted novel is all about missed opportunities and the choices we make. William works at the lost letter depot, where he tries to reunite people with their missing missives. There are some wonderful little stories and fabulous characters wrapped up in with his dilemmas about his personal life. Very much a will he or won't he journey. I really enjoyed it, although I felt that the ending wasn't quite sufficient.

This book was not quite what I was expecting! William Woolf is a letter detective at the Dead Letters Depot. It's where all the letters that get lost in the post end up, the ones without proper addresses or where rain has made the address illegible. I think I was expecting a quirky story of finding people and there is a bit of that, but this is mostly the story of a marriage that has turned from love to disappointment. In fact, William and Clare's marriage absolutely reeks of disappointment. Those little quirks that once delighted have now become irritating. Those un-kept promises are a blight on their lives. Clare's career success and William's pride and lack of ambition are pulling them apart. It's all gone a bit sour.

At the depot, William comes across a letter addressed to "My Great Love" from a woman named Winter. From then on he becomes obsessed with finding Winter. I felt it was a shame that he was looking away from Clare but I guess he thought the grass might be greener on the other side. Clare, in her own way, is looking elsewhere too. The question throughout the book is: can they rescue their marriage and get back to the love they once had for each other?

I loved the other letters that William found during the course of his work. For special items of post he and the other letter detectives got to deliver them in person and I thought those stories were particularly lovely. I would have liked more of them actually. They were woven into the story extremely well. I would also have relished more of an exploration into life at the depot. Personally, I think this side of the story was the most appealing. I find it quite strange that there is no mention of William having a wife in the blurb - it led me to expect quite a different story.
This is not a read that can be rushed. It's descriptive, talks much of feelings and expectations and resentments. The writing is beautiful, very lyrical and mature in style. I wanted William and Clare to be happy and I cared about them.

Overall, it's an incredibly accomplished debut novel, not what I was expecting or indeed hoping for, but nevertheless I totally appreciate the strength of Cullen's writing and the beauty of the book she has created.

The premise of this story, a character who works in the Dead Letters Depot, where lost mail goes sounded fascinating. Looking for clues to who the mail belongs to and sending it on to the intended recipient sounds like a fun job.

The characters are likeable, especially William. We get a great insight into his marriage as the story jumps between William and Claire’s pov. I was a little disappointed however, as I expected the story to be more focused on the various letters and William finding their rightful owners, but instead it focused mainly on William and Claire’s relationship.

The book is well written and if you are looking for a story on relationships I would recommend this.

The synopsis of this book really caught my attention and made me very excited to read it, promising a whimsical, charming story about lost letters and parcels. That is what I got I guess, but only in part.

I loved William Woolf, Letter Detective at the Dead Letters Depot in London. He is a very warm and likeable character, and I really enjoyed reading the lost letters in the book. But overall that is a quite small part of this novel. For me the story concentrated too much on William's wife, Clare (my least favourite character), and her background. Those parts of the story, and also some of the parts about the sorry state of their marriage, were a little melodramatic at times. I loved the parts about the dead letters, the reason I picked up the book in the first place, and I am sure I would have enjoyed the book more had there been more of that and less of the marital woes.

This book sounded great, right up my street and a potential 5 star read, but ultimately it wasn't what I was expecting and I didn't like it as much as I had hoped. Fans of womens fiction about difficult domestic relationships will love it though I'm sure.

I loved the premise of this book! The idea that there are people who are willing to take the time to get lost post back to the rightful owners is a lovely one and I do hope there is a Dead Letters depot somewhere. Some of the personal stories behind the post were beautiful to read about and quite emotional at times when you read about the intended recipient finally opening their post. There was a bit of a nostalgic quality to the book as letters are a bit of a rarity these days as is sending some of the items that are mentioned through the post. It made me a little wistful for the simple joy of a hand written letter addressed to you.

William is an interesting character. He is a little bit of a loner, a bit geeky and a bit of a dreamer. He loves the idea of happy endings which is what drew him to the job and motivates him to return the post to the right person. His little routines and idiosyncrasies were very sweet and heartwarming to read about. It definitely made me warm to him.

The journey he undertakes to find the women who wrote the ”’ my great love’ letters was an interesting one. I did enjoy reading about his travels and the interesting people he meets on his way, who all seem to have their own stories to tell, which really added to the story. I did feel a little cross with William for going on the journey as I felt he was being a little unfair on all involved chasing a dream whilst still married. Even if that marriage is going through a bit of a rough patch.

For me this wasn’t a particularly fast paced book but that doesn’t matter as the reader is soon absorbed in William’s story and his internal fight over which women, his wife or the mysterious letter writer, he’s going to choose. I felt that I wanted to keep reading to find out more about William and to find out how the story ends.

This is Helen’s debut novel and I will look forward to reading more from her in the future. If you like The Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry, you’ll like this story as I felt they were similar.

Huge thanks to Gaby Young for my copy of this book and to Katie Ashworth for inviting me onto the blog tour. If you like sweet, nostalgic stories about someone finding themselves then you’ll love this book.

This is a novel set in the 1980’s when hand written letters were perhaps less of a novelty than they are now. I must confess though that sometimes I felt drawn much further back into time than that, perhaps because our protagonist feels so very formal and old fashioned; certainly quite straight-laced.

In the depths of Shoreditch, William Woolfe works in the Dead Letters Dept, a place where a handful of staff try to link letters without sufficiency of address to the people they were meant for. Sadly, no such place could possibly exist; not today, anyway. Can you imagine working in a Post Office place of employment where an employee could decide to take off for the afternoon in order to deliver by hand a letter destined for 200+ miles away? Still, it is a lovely idea and I have some sympathy for Helen Cullen’s view of how the world might be if there was more kindness in it.

William, our letter detective, loves his job and has a real feeling for it. He would be happy but for the knowledge that with every passing day his wife, Clare seems to be a bit more distant. While William is broadly happy with his lot, Clare is struggling to reconcile what she wants and needs from her marriage and what William can give her. For different reasons, they are each a disappointment to the other.

Once so wholly in love, now they are like distant flatmates. Neither likes the situation, neither knows quite how to change it.

In the midst of this central storyline we have a number of heart-warming stories about lost items and their reconciliation with their owners or those who they were destined for, and these stories add lightness to the book.

William becomes obsessed with a set of letters discovers from a lady who calls herself ‘Winter’. Winter is writing beautiful letters to her unnamed, as yet unfound, one true love. Stirred by and drawn to her passion and enthusiasm for life, William sets out to track Winter down. But in doing so, will this cause him to leave Clare behind for ever?

The Lost Letters is a story of love, loss, longing and romantic idealism. It is slow paced and with lovely prose, though a little over written in places.

Verdict: I enjoyed it and I loved the setting and the world that Helen Cullen creates. An admirable debut.

William Woolf works in the dead letter depot in London. He spends his days trying to figure out recipients from misaddressed envelopes, bad handwriting, guessed addresses, damaged packaging, as well as dealing with post sent to fictional and obscure people. Some of the post, well it wouldn't matter if it never reached its destination but there are some that he is proud of being able to deliver, sometimes even personally. He used to be more ambitious, he had plans for a book, a book about lost letters and parcels and the stories they told but has stalled somewhat. Outside of work though, he isn't doing so good as he is rather stagnating is his personal life and indeed his relationship so his interest is really piqued when letters written to "My Great Love" start turning up at the depot. Reading these letters, written by Winter to her "soulmate" a man she has conjured up in the hopes of making him real, he starts to investigate. Who could she be, could he actually find her? Studying the minutiae of the information contained in each letter, he becomes obsessed with Winter; thinking he himself could be her Great Love.
This is a strange book. As I was reading, there didn't seem to be as much substance as I would have really liked. But, then when I finished, I sat back and thought about it and realisation dawned that actually there was so much more to just the sum of the parts of what I had read. At the start, there was quite a lot about the depot. How it worked, what they did and the stories of some of the puzzles they had solved in their endeavours. I found this to be quite interesting in itself as I had only recently had a letter returned to me which was rain damaged so they couldn't read the address and had to open it to find me. Spooky huh! But then we got a bit bogged down in William's failing relationship with Clare and his day-dreaming about Winter. This slowed things down a little bit for me and I started to wonder how the author would be able to swing it round. Then, as we approached the end, when things started to all come together, I found that some of the things that happened were a little too contrived, too neat, and all a bit busy, all coming together in a bit of a rush.
I know that William is supposed to act way older than his years, something that is very much reflected in his choice of clothing but, to me, he did feel a bit too disjointed as a character. As such, I found it a little hard to really connect to him. I guess that actually means that the author did a good job in a way as, after I finished the book and spent some time reflecting on him, I realised that maybe that was exactly what I should have felt about him. He was floundering, stagnating, despondent, depressed even. Feelings that weren't really helped by Clare's ongoing frustration of him and the way his life has gone.
Winter confused me a little too. As more and more came out of the letters she was writing I felt that maybe this wasn't quite the right course of action for what she was trying to achieve. I'd love to write more about my feelings around this but it might contain spoilers which is a shame because I did do quite a bit of thinking round the subject.
As for the actual story, for some reason it was one that I wasn't actually eager to get to the end of. Almost, but not quite, like I didn't care too much. But there was something, something I can't quite explain, that made me read on despite my ambivalence regarding the characters and what happened to them. Maybe it was the way the book was written rather than what the author wrote, if that makes sense.
All in all, as already mentioned, a strange book that actually delivered, in hindsight, much more than on face value. It's a love story at its heart but unlike any love story I have ever read before. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.