Letters Literature

One of the most important novels in classic literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tackles the subject of adultery, with the notorious Hester Prynne at the forefront of the scandal in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the beginning of the novel, Hester is serving time in prison for having a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear a scarlet A on her clothing at all times, so she cannot run from her sin no matter where she goes.

Summer is a busy season at the inn, so proprietor Jo Marie Rose and handyman Mark Taylor have spent a lot of time together keeping the property running. Despite some folks' good-natured claims to the contrary, Jo Marie insists that Mark is only a friend. However, she seems to be thinking about this particular friend a great deal lately.

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb.... As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends - and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.

Thirty-year-old Eve Sharland is browsing a Pennsylvania antique store when she discovers an old brass lantern tucked away on a shelf. She picks it up and sees something behind one of the sooty glass panes. To her surprise, she finds an unopened letter stuck inside. The letter is postmarked December 24, 1885, and it is addressed to Evelyn Sharland in New York City. Eve gasps and drops the letter. That's her name!

When good-natured but accident-prone Ruth Caldwell moves from the East to California, she finds adventure, love, and God's protection from peril.

Cathy Marie Hake is author of over 30 Christian romances and has won many honors, including the Inspirational Readers Choice award.

Two weeks have passed since Iris Winnow returned home bruised and heartbroken from the front, but the war is far from over. Roman is missing, and the city of Oath continues to dwell in a state of disbelief and ignorance. When Iris and Attie are given another chance to report on Dacre’s movements, they both take the opportunity and head westward once more despite the danger, knowing it’s only a matter of time before the conflict reaches a city that’s unprepared and fracturing beneath the chancellor’s reign.

March 1912: 24-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet, has never seen the world beyond her home on Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye. So she is astonished when her first fan letter arrives, from a college student, David Graham, in far-away America. As the two strike up a correspondence - sharing their favorite books, wildest hopes, and deepest secrets - their exchanges blossom into friendship, and eventually into love. June 1940: At the start of World War II, Elspeth’s daughter, Margaret, has fallen for a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Her mother warns her against seeking love in wartime, an admonition Margaret doesn’t understand....

Rose Rita wishes she could go to camp like her best friend, Lewis. She's sure that boys get to have all the fun - until Mrs. Zimmermann offers her an adventure of her own. Mrs. Zimmermann's cousin Oley has left her his farm as well as a ring that he thinks is magic. But when the two arrive at the deserted farm, the ring has mysteriously vanished. What power does it have? And will the person who took it use the ring to do evil?

It is 1923. Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the retired Sherlock Holmes, are enjoying the summer together on their Sussex estate when they are visited by an old friend, Miss Dorothy Ruskin, an archeologist just returned from Palestine. She leaves in their protection an ancient manuscript which seems to hint at the possibility that Mary Magdalene was an apostle—an artifact certain to stir up a storm of biblical proportions in the Christian establishment.

Written in the winter of 1849, The Scarlet Letter unfolds the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman branded as an adulteress in the harsh Puritan world of 17th-century New England. As Hester calls on her inner strength to transcend her shame, the scarlet letter ceases to be a stigma and finally becomes Hester's symbol of self-affirmation. This dramatic reading heightens the sense of lyric poetry that permeates every line of Nathaniel Hawthorne's great novel.

It's crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you've been sober for so long. Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation - it was just us. >It was just him - the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle. It was just me - the alcoholic, pretending like I didn't want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn't make me crave him any less.

It’s the summer of 1891, New York City, in the early days of Fiona Finnegan’s marriage to Nicholas Soames. When Fiona senses a quiet love blossoming between her widowed uncle, Michael Finnegan, and his neighbor, Mary Munro, she’s thrilled and hopes that Michael will soon propose to Mary. But one night, at a family supper, a surprise announcement tears these hopes asunder.

Germany, 1939. A tumbledown farmhouse, on the outskirts of a close-knit village in the heart of the rolling hills of Bavaria. A once happy family home torn apart by Nazi rule. And one young girl who refuses to give up on what she believes in...London, 2018: When 94-year-old Imogen receives a letter addressed to her in neat, unfamiliar handwriting, she notices the postmark is stamped from Germany - and it sends shivers down her spine....

Trust is a delicate thing, and no one knows that better than Rosalind Thorne. Lady Melbourne has entrusted her with recovering a packet of highly sensitive private letters stolen from her desk. The contents of these letters hold great interest for the famous poet Lord Byron, who had carried on a notorious public affair with Lady Melbourne's daughter-in-law, the inconveniently unstable Lady Caroline Lamb. Rosalind is to take up residence in Melbourne House, posing as Lady Melbourne's confidential secretary. There, she must discover the thief and regain possession of the letters.

Captain Jack Aubrey, a brilliant and experienced officer, has been struck off the list of post-captains for a crime he did not commit. His old friend Stephen Maturin, usually cast as a ship's surgeon to mask his discreet activities on behalf of British intelligence, has bought for Aubrey his former ship the Surprise to command as a privateer, more politely termed a letter of marque. Together they sail on a desperate mission against the French, which, if successful, may redeem Aubrey from the private hell of his disgrace.

From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she's expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments--especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s--Luisa's work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II. When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather's work, her father's identity, and why she has never progressed.

Jane’s father is far from perfect. But his sudden death brings crushing grief. As Jane grapples with her pain, life delivers another blow: a stack of letters pointing to a secret life. A life her father shared with another woman…who may have had his child. Across the country, sixteen-year-old Adam is self-destructing. His adoptive parents never intended to show him the unsigned letters from his birth mother, but he is desperate for answers, even if they hurt. Jane and Adam are on a collision course, but not for the reasons we might suspect.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight. Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude.

Easily one of the most towering figures of Bengali literature of the 20th century, Buddhadeva Bose was as prolific as he was versatile. A poet of renown, Bose was also an accomplished playwright, novelist, essayist and short-story writer. His prose is marked by invention, refreshing modernity and an easy yet deep engagement with timeless themes: love, the nature of memory, and the complexity of the relationship between man and woman - qualities which keep Bose’s work enduringly relevant.

Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs, thirty-something Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that’s on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters. It’s the perfect outlet for her pent-up frustration and rage. The exercise empowers her, and even feels healthy at first. Until William writes back.