Set in Thatcher-era Britain, far before the Google age, this is a sweet poignant tale of Jenny, the postal sorter whose youngest daughter passed away two years prior, leaving a deep chasm in her relationship with her husband Simon, and deepening with her older daughter Charlotte. Life is empty and mundane until she happens upon a lovelorn postcard from Michael, in Australia professing to Deborah, using an incomplete Isle of Wight address that "Life means nothing without you in it." Instead of sending along to the dead letter office, putting her job on the line, Jenny journeys to the island in search of Deborah. Having rare time alone with her thoughts, Jenny has an opportunity to reflect on her life and choices, giving us insight into why she's so drawn to Michael and Deborah's plight. A quick and enjoyable read for those drawn to a quiet, contemplative, and bittersweet book.

Plot: I very rarely read books that have a married woman with grown up kids as the lead character because it is something I can't relate to, but this book was a great surprise! I think overall this novel is about solitude, growing old and hope, and the way Loree Westron tackled these things was so original, because it is normal that in real life we might try to solve our own problems through someone else's.
Writing: Even though it is written in 3rd person it really felt like the MC was self-reflecting on her whole life and how it had led to that point and that made the novel even more special. The way the little town where Jenny was biking around was also written very well - I have never been to the UK's coast but I can imagine what it looks and feels like thanks to this book!
Character: from one hand it is easy to dislike them all and only like Jenny but I don't want to go that way. Considering the loss the family went through I think it is understandable that they all went in different directions for a while, it feels very realistic and shows us that we are all flawed and hurt sometimes.
Verdict: I think this is a great book, it's very feminine and made me learn about certain aspects of womanhood and motherhood that I had never thought about before.

Favorite quote: "human beings are fallible creatures, love. We're all struggling in one way or another, and trying to do the best we can"
Soundtrack: Landslide, by Fleetwood Mac

Very short and readable! Particularly drawn to the glorious backdrop of the book. I'll be looking out for more books by Loree Westron!

I received an eARC of Missing Words by Loree Westron from Fairlight Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
4 stars. This was a poignant family drama about forgiveness and letting go with a surprising ending. This novella packs a punch!

Loree Watson’s novella of a postal worker’s decision to search for the addressee of a postcard from Australia without a complete address is the catalyst for the protagonist’s journey through a moment in her life which is full of grief, dissatisfaction and discontentment. Jenny, the protagonist, takes the postcard to the Isle of Wight to find the addressee, Deborah Cunningham. During her weeks of searching for Deborah, Jenny is confronted with the aftermath of her daughter’s death, her tumultuous relationship with her other daughter, Charlotte, and her failing marriage with her husband, Simon. What is initially an attempt to find Deborah becomes a journey of self-discovery and a question of what could have been.

Amid Missing Words is a look at a Jenny’s inability to speak plainly to her husband, her lack of supportive words to Charlotte and her hesitation to say the most difficult but necessary words to other loves in her life: her co-worker and friend, Roger, her mother, and an old lover, Paolo.

This shorter fiction was an interesting read as I learned a lot about the geography and topography of the Isle of Wight. I loved the descriptions of Jenny riding her bicycle around the terrain and could feel her moments of euphoria riding down a hill as well as her moments of pain pushing her bike up hills.

I think that the insight to Jenny’s life at such a pivotal moment was interesting—especially since she’s preoccupied with her age. I thought that the story was—at times—a bit too heavily concerned with Jenny’s relationship with Paolo. However, since I’ve never been married or looked back at past relationships in the ways that Jenny does, it makes sense that I cannot relate to her continuously mentioning Paolo or her relationship with him.

What I found most interesting was Jenny’s relationships with her own mother and her daughter, Charlotte. These two women in her life are representations of who Jenny is and isn’t and the comparisons and contrasts among the three are fascinating. Watson captures the complexity of mother-daughter relationships brilliantly!
Another interesting point was Jenny’s belief that if Charlotte attends university, then Charlotte will have better opportunities in life. While this sentiment is still widely believed, I appreciated Charlotte’s argument that post-secondary school is not for everyone. As someone with an MA, I can attest that there are moments that I regret my academic decisions. This opinion isn’t always vocalized in literature being published these days, so I really appreciate that.

I think that readers who enjoy “slice-of-life” stories about women’s familial, romantic and platonic relationships will enjoy Watson’s Missing Words.

Many thanks to Fairlight Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this title in return for an honest review.

This is not a long book at 160 pages, and I read it in an evening. There is more depth to it than one might think, even though the real story is told in bits and pieces around the narrative that involves Jenny trying to find the intended recipient of a postcard.

Jenny is middle-aged, one daughter died a couple years previously, her husband and other daughter have drifted away, and her only friend at work (another mail sorter) is soon to retire. She wonders if perhaps she is destined to simply lose everyone.

Although we see exchanges with her friend, her husband, her daughter, and others, they are not fully-formed characters, nor do they need to be. Jenny is the focus, and it is her thoughts and actions that have center stage.

Jenny is in a difficult place - her marriage is suffering after the loss of her youngest daughter, and her eldest daughter is growing up and making ill-advised choices. When she comes across an undelivered postcard from Australia in her job as a post office mail sorter she decides to set out on a journey across the Isle of Wight to deliver it personally.

This was a short but sweet novel which I enjoyed hugely. The setting of the 1980s with the backdrop of the miners' strikes, Greenham Common and so on was very authentic, and a trip down memory lane for me as I was a teenager at that time! I read it in one go as I wanted to see whether Jenny would succeed in delivering the postcard to the intended recipient. Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Loree Westron's MISSING WORDS is a swift, beautiful story about a woman on a quest to unite two lovers. She is a postal worker who discovers an incomplete address on a postcard when she is sorting the mail. Against all rules and logic, she pockets the postcard and embarks on a mission to reunite the doomed couple, lying to her husband and evading the reality of her own life while trying to make things work out for someone else. In her quest on a bike on an island of small villages, she rides fast and furiously on her mission, discovering her own hard truths and ultimately admitting to herself what she wants and what she believes is possible for her and her loved ones. Beautifully written, the story is all consuming, making dinner late and bedtime shoved to the side to remain engrossed in a wonderful story. I received an advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for my unbiased review.

👩 Jenny is a postal worker. She is struggling with her life: her marriage is falling apart, her daughter is leaving the nest, her best friend at work is retiring. When a postcard with an incomplete address lands on her table at work, she is moved by the lovely word and decides to go to Isle of Wight and deliver it herself instead of directing it to the dead letter office. ⁠
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❤️ I liked:⁠
🚴‍♀️ The journey. Deciding to deliver the postcard, Jenny embarks on a physical and emotional journey. She travels around the Isle of Wight thinking about her life and her past.⁠
✍️ The writing. This short novella is fluid and really easy to follow. The inserts that describe Jenny's past are also engaging, and they help with the story, making it even more dynamic.⁠
⛰️ The setting. There are so many beautiful descriptions of the Isle of Wight, you really just want to go there and start cycling up and down the island.⁠
💌 The mysterious postcard. I loved this idea. I find postcards so romantic and thoughtful. I feel like if you spend your time buying, writing and sending a postcard, the recipient really means something to you. ⁠
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⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ 4/5 Missing Words is a heartwarming story about family, loss and love. Thanks to NetGalley and Fairlight Books for the copy.

‘How quickly things can change and disappear.’

England, 1984. Jenny works as a postal worker in Portsmouth. She is nearing forty, her marriage is struggling, her daughter is almost nineteen. Life for Jenny is not quite what she envisaged it would be and is about to become more difficult as her friend and colleague is about to retire. One day as she sorts the mail, Jenny comes across a postcard from Australia. The address is incomplete but, moved by the message which begs the recipient for forgiveness, Jenny takes the postcard instead of directing it to the dead letter office. The partial address includes the Isle of Wight, and Jenny thinks that she might be able to deliver the postcard herself.

What follows is both a physical journey (as Jenny cycles around the Isle of Wight) and an emotional journey (as Jenny thinks about and regrets some of her past actions). Written on the postcard is a request for the recipient to phone the sender by the end of August:

‘If I don’t hear from you by then, I’ll know it‘s really over.’

As she cycles around the Isle of Wight, Jenny has time to think of the past, of her own regrets and expectations. She struggles at times with the ride (can she do it?) and enlists the help of locals to try to find the address. And as we travel with Jenny, we learn about her first love, about a tragedy which has befallen her family, and about Jenny’s hopes and fears for her daughter, Charlotte.

This is a novella about life, about coming to terms with the past to face the future. It is a reminder, as well, that not all problems can be fixed, that life is full of choices and their consequences. I finished the novel, hoping that Jenny would find her own peace with the world, with her husband Simon and daughter Charlotte. A thoughtful and enjoyable read.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Fairlight Books for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

An engrossing story set in 1984 about Jenny, a mail sorter. She’s almost 40, she and her husband barely communicate since their younger daughter died in an accident and their older daughter, Charlotte almost 19, is refusing to go to university and wants to move in with her boyfriend. Meanwhile at work, Jenny takes a postcard from Australia with an incomplete address for the Isle of Wight. She decides to try and find the addressee herself rather than send it to the dead letter office.
The book is about memory, and forgiveness, and letting go. It’s also about accepting the decisions in life and the choices made. It has a sad vibe but ends in a hopeful way.

Set in UK, during the 1980s strikes, Missing Words by Loree Westron tells the story of a woman who's trying to make sense of her life, her marriage, and mothering a young adult daughter. Jenny, a postal worker, is trying to deliver a postcard with insufficient address to its recipient, and in the process examines her life trajectory, as well as her family's. It's both a sad and hopeful read, set against a gorgeous background.

There are such beautiful scenes depicting the Isle of Wight, it was easy to go along with Jenny on her bike rides around the island. The writing is fluid and easy to follow, and the occasional snippets from Jenny's past give the story more plot. Facing a strained relationship with her daughter Charlotte, after losing her younger daughter two years prior, Jenny reminisces about the tense relationship with her own mother. The postcard she stole when she was supposed to sort mail, brings back the undealt with feelings she had towards Paul/ Paolo, her first love, with whom she had the chance to leave UK to start a new life, before she married Simon. When she took the postcard with the message begging for forgiveness, Jenny must have longed for a chance to offer two people a happy and fulfilling love story, one she's not currently living, despite having been married to Simon for twenty years.

Wandering the island up and down, searching for Deborah to deliver her the postcard, Jenny gets the chance to analyse her life, and eventually come to terms with sometimes not being able to fix all the things. It's a story that's not rushed, it takes its time, and eventually it settles into a rhythm that brings hope for a better future. I enjoyed reading this novella a lot!

A lovely novella charting the life and trauma, revealed in small snippets and painful memories of Jenny. Living in a silent marriage with Simon, and feeling lost, neglected and reliving her past, choices and possible lives, Jenny takes it upon herself to save someone else’s relationship, even though all of her own are fraught with tension and the pain of loss.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication in exchange for an honest review

I found this book extremely unsatisfying, an interesting premise spread too thinly. It read like a first draft created to block-out plot, with every thought and action of the characters over-explained to the reader in the absence of adept characterisation which would have made these things clear on their own. Evocation of place was almost entirely absent and evocation of time was clumsy and unconvincing (the historical contextualization felt like it had been skimmed off a short TV documentary about the 1980s). There were also anachronisms that should have been picked up in the editing process (characters saying ‘you got this’ and eating biscuits that hadn’t yet been invented!).

A mysterious postcard with the wrong address, haunts a postal worker thoughts as the writer is begging forgiveness from his true love. The postcard has traveled across the oceans, from Australia to England to deliver the heartfelt message. Jenny soon sets out to find the recipient to bring back together long-lost loves.

Missing Words is a heartwarming saga of one women, a postcard and roads cycled to repair your life. This novel is a short, poignant story about coming to terms with grief to move forward with your family.

Thank you NetGally and Fairlight Books for the complimentary copy.
#missingwordsnovella #netgally

I was looking forward to reading this novella, MISSING WORDS by Loree Westron. I enjoyed the journey! This is my first venture with this author and I enjoyed Loree's writing style. For me, this novella was a comfortable and well written. In some chapters, I found descriptions unnecessary and I thought it somewhat slowed down the story, otherwise, it was an enjoyable read.

Jenny & Simon's marriage has gone stale, hinting it won't survive! Jenny decides to take a journey which seems to put her life into perspective for their marriage and family life.

This book is about struggle, decision, regret, loss, grief and a whole lot more. I would recommend you read this novella and decided for yourself.

I give a 4 star rating.

I WANT TO THANK NETGALLEY FOR THE OPPORTUNITY FOR READING AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

A coming of age for the middle aged...Jenny's struggles are timeless and real. The struggle of life as we move through diffrerent turning points.

A taut psychological novella set in Thatcher’s Britain, a country that in this snapshot comes through as wavering between anger and resignation. Jenni is a mail sorter at the post office, a job she carries out with the exactness of a machine, and is subjected to humiliating surprise speed and accuracy checks and to the arbitrariness of petty supervisor. Discontent is everywhere and, as the country is shaken by strikes, Jenni has to negotiate where to stand. She works hard to be able to send her daughter Deborah to university and she returns home every evening to find her husband Simon drinking beer slouched on the sofa. The two have been drifting apart for a while and also her daughter is growing more and more alienated from her. When she finds a postcard from a desperate lover that will never reach its destination on the Isle of Wight because the address is wrong, she thinks that fixing that love she might mend hers, too.

An intense story played out between two dimensions: the tense domestic atmospheres where every glance, word and silence weigh a ton and tension is palpable; and the escapades on the Isle of Wight, the uplifting sense of lightness, adventure and freedom that comes when drifting downhill on the bike taking in the fresh air in the magnificent landscape of the island.

I loved the careful way point of view is manipulated, self-deception exposed. Appearances crumble as layers in the story are uncovered and secrets resurface, revealing dark truths and hidden character traits. I found myself shifting, siding with one and then with the other as they go through guilt, grief, anger regret, acceptance and growth. I also loved the way the political shapes the personal, how characters are shown reacting in that particular political climate. Definitely a page turner for me.

When Jenny who works in the Post Office sorting office sees the postcard with an incomplete address, she can’t help but read the message on the back. When she reads the plea from one lover to another from the other side of the world, it causes her to think back to her own life and what she thinks of as a missed opportunity. Jenny was once asked herself, to take the chance and see the world with a teenage boyfriend but she turned him down. Now she wonders what if……and decides that this couple should at least have a chance to make things work, if only she can find the other half of the puzzle and find the woman who the postcard is addressed to somewhere on the Isle of Wight.

Jenny’s life is somewhat in turmoil at the moment. She’s not the happiest she’s ever been and as she takes her bike over to the Isle of Wight in search of the postcard recipient, she uses the time to be alone with her thoughts and to think about where she would like her own life to go from here.

It’s a story about family life, grief, and searching for what is most important in life. Jenny feels like life is passing her by and that things must change. She questions her marriage and whether it will survive the heartbreak the family has suffered. It does tend to meander a little, especially when Jenny is on her bike rides but there are family scenes and workplace scenes which include a little more dialogue and help the reader to see why she feels like she has reached a turning point in her life.

It was also a chance for a step back in time and to realise how much things have changed in such a relatively short space of time. Phone calls made from telephone boxes, no Google to search out names, trade unions in their last throws of calling the shots in the workplace all take the reader back to another era. Many of the changes from then are probably for the better, but some perhaps not so much.

It was quite a poignant book at times and I enjoyed it very much.

*to be posted to my blog on publication day 5 August.*

The story of Jenny, who suffered a tragedy two years earlier which has caused her to drift apart from her husband, and feels that she is looking her daughter who is on the cusp of adulthood, and making choices that Jenny doesn't agree with. She works in a sorting office for Royal Mail, and is about to loose her friend and colleague, her one ally there. One day, she finds a postcard with an incomplete address from a man imploring a girl to take him back and giving her one month. She decided to pocket the letter and head over to the Isle of Wight and try to find the girl, and on the way, does some soul searching of her own to work out how to repair he own damaged relationships.

It's a short and poignant story, beautifully told, with an ending that rather surprised me.

*Many thanks to Netgalley and Fairlight books for a review copy in exchange for an honest opinion.*