I Sent a Letter to My Love (Library of Wales) by Peter Florence

I Sent a Letter to My Love (Library of Wales) Reviews

• 
  Brian Finnegan

  I Sent a Letter to My Love is about Amy Evans, an ugly woman in her fifties who lives with and reluctantly cares for her disabled brother, Stan, in a small Welsh seaside town. In a desperate bid for love and a life of her own she places a classified advert in the local paper and the only answer she gets is from her brother, who secretly has romantic and sexual desires of his own. Amy creates an alter ego called Blodywn Pugh and begins a correspondence with Stan. This is a perfectly polished jewel of a book, heartbreaking, hilarious, life-affirming and full of characters so real they live in your imagination long beyond the final page. The Booker prize-winning Bernice Rubens may be a largely forgotten author, but it’s well time she was rediscovered and celebrated.
  
• 
  Nicky

  Bernice Rubens' I Sent A Letter to My Love is an odd sort of romance. You know from the beginning of the affair that it isn't going to go well. I think the emotions depicted here feel real -- the frustrated dreams, the weird tension, the growing to love and want and be confident...
  
  The problem with it, for me, is that it's also very uncomfortable. I felt embarrassed for the main character, and just... I didn't like how it could turn out. The end is both final for her and very open for everyone else.
  
  Plus, I know an Amy Evans.
  
  I wondered about Blodwen Pugh. Could just be a coincidence, both are common Welsh names, but one of Rhys Davies' short stories is called Blodwen, and she's the main character, and she has a lover, Pugh... I wonder if that's linked to the sexual freedom aspect of this story.
• 
  Hilary

  I had forgotten what a brilliant writer Bernice Rubens was. She had a wonderful gift for finding the extraordinary in ordinary lives and exposing human frailty with a wicked and delicious humour. At the same time there is a real compassion for her characters who come alive on the page so vividly. In this novel, set in Porthcawl (South Wales) the dialogue is spot-on with a perfect Welsh phrasing of the English language so that you can hear the characters speak.
  
  Ageing Amy looks after her wheelchair-bound brother, Stan, but longs for some love and excitement in her life. She places an ad in the Personal columns of the local newspaper with unexpected consequences that will have long-lasting repercussions.
  
  Their family friend, Gwyneth, provides the butt of much of the humour and gives tension to the relationships. There are laugh-out-loud moments yet this is also a moving and touching novel. Brilliantly concise it achieves what others fail to do in much longer tomes.
  
• 
  Caroline

  Stan is the adored child with rickets, Amy is the despised child with a snub nose and plain features, and both find the attention of their mother difficult to handle. We see their childhood through Amy’s sad and troubled eyes.
  
  Fast forward several decades. Their parents are dead. Amy thinks her mother died of anger. She is now in her 50s, and she and Stan are living together – uncomfortably and abrasively, but within the security of their small town routine. Stan’s life is only worth living because he can drum up memories of a seemingly carefree childhood. Amy’s memories of her childhood are far less benign.
  
  Then one day they both get involved with a Lonely Hearts column, and everything changes.
  
  This is a story about how fantasy can take over from reality, and what the highs and lows of falling in love can bring to the lives of two lonely people. After a while reality starts to butt in – firstly in ways that are bizarrely controllable, and finally in ways that are out of control.
  
  Bernice Rubens is a great story-teller, and the storyline is utterly gripping, particularly in the second half of the book, once the letters start...
  
  An excellent read.
  
• 
  Alisa

  This is the second Bernice Rubens book I've read, and it's as sad and dark-humored as the first.
  
  I really like the way Rubens portrays loneliness, longing, and isolation. Amy, who has been lonely and unloved her entire life due to her "ugliness," yearns to be wanted and accepted - to the point that her longing carries her into an escapist fantasy (adopting a made-up identity through which she exchanges love letters with her own lonely, disabled brother). Amy gets so caught up in this fantasy - the only source of love and happiness that she has ever known - that she desperately works to prolong it, going to bizarre lengths to keep up the ruse. In all, this was like a sad, beautifully written train-wreck that I could not look away from.
  
  I'm looking forward to reading more from Rubens.
• 
  Care

  I REALLY enjoyed this book! The style and mood of this work is playful, intense, creative and enticing. and dark, but not a depressing dark, maybe sinister is the better word here. Just one of these feelings where you wonder ‘uh oh. This isn’t going to end well!’ But you HAVE to keep reading to find out! It doesn’t end as bad as I imagined… But on the other hand, it isn’t what I’d call a happy ending, either.
  
  [
  http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com/2008/...]
• 
  Jacqueline

  A really well written novel but rather an uncomfortable read. It's been a long time since I read any other Bernice Rubens but I remember enjoying the dark comedy in them - this was just dark and tragic and not funny for me. Back to chick lit to brighten things up next I think.
• 
  Mary Lou

  Strangely enough, this book, like my last, is about a brother and sister. Both now in their fifties, Amy and Stan, who is now confined to a wheelchair, live together. Amy wonders if she has a last chance to find love.
  
  Darkly delicious as Bernice Rubens always is
• 
  Annebeth

  Strange and sad story