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Love Letters

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 1,910 ratings · 242 reviews

Laura Horsley might have bitten off more than she can chew when she agrees to help organize a literary festival and finds herself going to Ireland to persuade the infamous and reclusive author Dermot Flynn to come out of hiding.

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published June 4th 2009 by Century

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Mar 26, 2012 Debbie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've read the majority of Ms. Fforde's books, but it's been a while since I've enjoyed one as much as I enjoyed this one.

First, Katie Fforde books are not deep or challenging or meant to bring about great change in the world. They're meant for entertainment, so if you're expecting more, stop.

Second, although her writing is formulaic, this particular novel does have a bit of extra twist in it, and an early pay-off (wink, wink) that keeps the tension going most of the way through the book. But the...more

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Aug 13, 2011 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011

I sometimes choose to read books for some really superficial reasons: I saw this at the library and liked the cover (although it annoys me that the author’s name is larger than the title…), and I wondered if Katie Fforde was related to Jasper Fforde. For those of you wondering, she is, although not directly.

Anyways, this book is about Laura. The bookshop she works in is closing, but just at the same time, she’s roped into helping to organize a literary festival in a small English town. Unfortuna...more I sometimes choose to read books for some really superficial reasons: I saw this at the library and liked the cover (although it annoys me that the author’s name is larger than the title…), and I wondered if Katie Fforde was related to Jasper Fforde. For those of you wondering, she is, although not directly.

Anyways, this book is about Laura. The bookshop she works in is closing, but just at the same time, she’s roped into helping to organize a literary festival in a small English town. Unfortunately there’s a small error in communication and all of the sudden she’s in charge of trying to get Dermot Flynn to be a part of the festival - a famous Irish author who is notorious for refusing to make public appearances. He’s been her favorite writer for years, but she decides to try to meet him and talk him into being a part of the lit fest. But he’s surly, uncooperative, and annoying attractive…

As you can probably tell, this is more in the chick-lit genre, which usually isn’t a favorite of mine. Good new though – I enjoyed this book. I love that it takes place in England and Ireland, and that it was so literary-themed. I love it when books are a major part of a storyline in a book. Seems silly, but it’s true. Laura was also a likable character – she was sweet and kind of funny. I definitely cheered for her, and envied her life surrounded by such book-lovers. I notice that in all the books I read that take place in Britain, reading is always of importance. Is reading just more highly valued in England? If so, I want to go there like yesterday.

The romance between Laura and Dermot was a bit lacking for me. The inital attraction is there and evident, but I felt like they were apart for so much of the book that a real relationship seemed unlikely and that it made their eventual pairing up seem rushed. Also, there’s a question during the book of what Dermot’s feelings really were, and it was frustrating me that Laura was too shy to really ask him what the deal was. I’m more of a straight-forward person, so that was irking me a bit.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. There were a lot of interesting and diverse secondary characters. I love the bookish-ness of the story, I loved the setting. I looked up the author on Amazon, and some of her other books have gotten higher ratings than this one. Next time I’m in the mood for something enjoyable and fluffy, I’m definitely going to look for another Katie Fforde book.

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Jun 18, 2011 Beverly rated it 4 of 5 stars

I like Katie Fforde's books. Sure they are formulaic -- girl meets boy, falls in love, has a misunderstanding, boy comes after her and they live happily ever after. Each book deals with a woman who is embarking on a new journey whether she wants to or not. The men in the books are second class citizens. It is the woman who is the star. She is the one who decides how the relationship will unfold. The men are willing but the women each have trouble believing in their good luck. They all seem to fi...more

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May 02, 2011 Rebecca rated it 2 of 5 stars

Having read a Katie Fforde novel once before (Going Dutch) and thoroughly enjoying it I decided to give what was at the time, her newest book, a read. I bought it when it came out and only just got around to reading it. I need not have bothered.

Laura Horsley, the main character has lost her job after the independent bookshop she works for closes. She then gets involved in running a literary festival and naturally the book focuses around a romance, in this case between herself and Irish author De...more

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Apr 30, 2011 bookczuk rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-about-books, skim-read-til-the-end, ho-hum

I picked this book up at my favorite local independent bookstore for three reasons. The first is that I'd recently listened to an audio-version of a book by this author, read by the unbelievably grand voice actress Divina Porter and loved how she handled the British accents and the Scottish ones. This book promised Irish accents and I got carried away, forgetting it wasn't audio and I'd have to supply the voices in my head myself. Reason number two was that I really did enjoy the story as well i...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, not-so-trashy-trashy-novels, books-set-in-ireland

FForde's formula -- a woman finds love while she's busy doing interesting, arts-connected work - never fails to satisfy. Laura Horsley has always loved books and enjoyed her job in an indie bookstore. But the owner wants to retire and is closing the store so Laura will be "redundant," as the Brits call unemployed. At one of the last author events she organises, Laura meets the formidable agent Eleanora, who ropes her into organizing a literary festival. The catch: the deep=pockets sponsor wants...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Zara rated it 1 of 5 stars

I have only read one Katie Fforde book which I really liked and I had high hopes for this one too, unfortunatley it didn't live up to expectations.
I am someone who loves most books I can get my hands on and it is VERY weird for me to ever give a book such a low rating but I found much about this book unlikable. The heroine Laura annoyed me from the start and kept making stupid choices while drunk after starting out with a paragraph about how she wasn't going to drink too much! Also why does she...more

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May 15, 2011 Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: chick-lit

Laura Horsley (yes, the heroine's name is the least romantic most equine name there could be) is being made redundant at the bookstore she loves. Not because the bookstore is logically closing due to the harsh realities of publishing, just because the store's owner Henry wants to retire. This book loving introvert starts throwing caution to the wind and saying things she'd never have said if her life wasn't being uprooted. She's not rude, she just speaks her mind, which brings her to the attenti...more Laura Horsley (yes, the heroine's name is the least romantic most equine name there could be) is being made redundant at the bookstore she loves. Not because the bookstore is logically closing due to the harsh realities of publishing, just because the store's owner Henry wants to retire. This book loving introvert starts throwing caution to the wind and saying things she'd never have said if her life wasn't being uprooted. She's not rude, she just speaks her mind, which brings her to the attention of a literary agent at the store, Eleanora. Eleanora likes to scheme. And she has just the scheme for this little bookworm. How would Laura like to run a literary festival? She'd just have to convince the most recluse author on the planet, Dermot Flynn, to leave his secluded village in the west of Ireland and come to England. Sure, no problem, seeing as he won't even do an event 5 miles from his house... With her new bff Monica, lead singer of a swing and nostalgia band in tow, off they go to Ireland. After much alcohol, Laura decides that it's a great idea to loose her virginity to the author she has worshiped since college in order to secure his appearing at her festival. Problem is, the next day she doesn't remember what happened. This shy little girl now has to get up the courage to ask this literary lion if they slept together.

Even if they didn't, Laura still wishes to, because she realizes, after now meeting the man, she's in love. She tries to deny her feelings by throwing herself into her work on the festival and subsequently her work in a writing course she's helping Dermot with, but all her work having the ring of Dermot doesn't help to distract her much. But while she may be ignoring her feelings for a certain man, she is embracing her dream of becoming an editor. Laura has finally broken into the rarefied book world and she has a bright future ahead, despite how gloomy her parents are about it. Now if she can just ignore Dermot forevermore and mend her broken heart, then life could be peachy.

Part of me wants to know if this was all some big joke. A book about a character aspiring to be an editor should have logically had an editor itself. The grammatical errors, typos and sentences that just plain didn't make sense, ran rampant through this book. Several times I thought, I should put this down, and then didn't. It really doesn't matter that I finished, it feels like a book I've read a hundred times before, only less original. It's riddled with cliches of the genre and peopled by unlikable characters in stupid situations. There's the wallflower, who obviously is virginal, her bff, the extrovert rocker chick and her other bff, the gay boy. Then add in the dollop of Darcy sex appeal with Dermot and wait to get them together. Once together, break them up for a stupid reason and in the climax get them back together with all problems surmounted. Ug. And ironically, I was in the mood for some really good chick lit. This my friends, is not good chick lit. Laura becomes an extrovert through the heavy and liberal application of alcohol. So girls, remember, to get the guy, start drinking whisky by the tumbler full! The two writers Veronica and Anne who show up to the literary festival are the only reason this is two stars. They are star one and star two, the rest of the book is a zero. Plus, I was once more lured in by a cover. There is NOTHING in the book that that cover relates too! Skip it, that's my advice of the day, seeing as it's going straight into my sell pile. I can only be grateful I picked this up used... and now I know why such a new release was at Half Price Books...
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Mar 31, 2013 Luciana rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book is so boring I still don’t know how I dragged myself through it. There’s no sparks at all between Laura and Dermot and doesn’t feel lika a love story. It goes into so many details about the writing course (I still don’t understand what that had to do with the story in general) and the festival organization (should the pages be laminated or not and so on). The conversation sound so affected, not like they were taking place on this century:

‘Oh, for Jaysus’ sake! From where I’m standing,...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Holly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Well, I was in the mood for a love story, so naturally I picked up Love Letters. You would think by the title alone I would have got a love story, however, that didn't happen. I found this book hard to get through. First off, the main character, Laura, annoyed me a little. She proclaimed to be shy, an introvert who read books, but hardly did much of anything else. She didn't seem all that shy to me. She drank a lot and wanted to give up her virginity within minutes of meeting her hero. And that'...more

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May 11, 2012 Zuzana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, fiction

With the bookshop where she works about to close, hopeless romantic Laura Horsley, in a moment of uncharacteristic recklessness, finds herself agreeing to help organise a literary festival deep in the heart of the English countryside. But her initial excitement is rapidly followed by a mounting sense of panic when reality sinks in and she realises just how much work is involved - especially when an innocent mistake leads the festival committee to mistakenly believe that Laura is a personal frien...more With the bookshop where she works about to close, hopeless romantic Laura Horsley, in a moment of uncharacteristic recklessness, finds herself agreeing to help organise a literary festival deep in the heart of the English countryside. But her initial excitement is rapidly followed by a mounting sense of panic when reality sinks in and she realises just how much work is involved - especially when an innocent mistake leads the festival committee to mistakenly believe that Laura is a personal friend of the author at the top of their wish-list. Laura might have been secretly infatuated with the infamous Dermot Flynn ever since she studied him at university, but travelling to Ireland to persuade the notorious recluse to come out of hiding is another matter.
I’ve had this book for over a year now – I got it for my 17th birthday last year and even though I’d started reading it two or three times, I had never carried on. I picked it up last weekend again, determined to read a bit more than before and surprisingly, I found myself loving this book. A shy bookworm? Literary festival? How could I dislike that? I read excitedly and as much as I could for a few days, not understanding the negative reviews. I even thought this book would surely get a spot on my „Favorite“ shelf.
At first, I didn’t think the story was too long or dull, considering the genre and the plot. I loved the literary theme and I read really quickly. However, when the literary festival was finally taking place, I was bored, hoping it would end soon. I lowered my rating to 4 stars. But when the festival came to an end, the story continued with even more tedious descriptions and unimportant events. Laura’s attitude towards Dermont was grealty irritating me. She thought she had all the right answers to what had happened between them but she refused to communicate. He used me, bam, that’s it, I won’t even return his calls.
I struggled to finish the last thirty pages that I had left and the epilogue killed it for me. I just knew what would happen. I didn’t find it neither surprising nor cute. Also, I notcied quite a lot grammatical errors and typos.
If the story were a little shorter, I think it’d get more positive reviews and it’d really be worth my 5 stars. Due to everything I have mentioned, I am giving Love Letters 3 stars.
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Jul 09, 2010 Namratha Kumar rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: chick-lit

Love Letters is the chick lit version of a long, rambling walk in the countryside. Accompany twenty-six year old Laura Horsley, as she moves from being a behind-the-scenes bookshop assistant to a hands-on organizer of a fledgling literary festival that is set in a quaint pocket of the English countryside. One of the biggest tasks entrusted to her is to pull in the Irish best-selling author, Dermot Flynn. The tempestuous wordsmith is suffering from a raging case of Writer’s Block and has become a...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Michele Bolay rated it 2 of 5 stars

FForde is usually a go-to author for me when it comes to comfort reads of the romantic English countryside kind. Didn't finish this one, though. Fforde has several different types of heroines, and this is my least favorite. It seemed like she mixed it up a little more in some of her earlier books, with older and/or divorced-with-kid(s) heroines popping up more frequently in books like Living Dangerously, Wild Designs, Thyme Out, and Paradise Fields. Even The Rose Revived, which featured three 20...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Je Dayana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Well, it was the cover that attracts me first when I bought this book. When I flipped it over to read the synopsis, the first thing that came into my mind was Mr. Darcy; the main male character in Pride and Prejudice and so I was keen to read the book more. So, once I was home I start reading and I actually managed to finish reading the book in no time. Well, the plot is incredibly amazing and I couldn't help wishing that I am Laura. Funny! I particularly love the part where Dermot come at Laura...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Sue rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love Katie Fforde because she writes a lovely English contemporary romance, usually about women who aren't perfect, have lost their jobs, or are in the middle of a life crisis of some kind. Along comes a man, and it's usually mutual dislike. The road to love is not smooth, (as we all know) and there are misunderstandings and many times months go by before it's resolved. It's not a tidy "glance across the room and live happily ever after" romance, but there is always a happy ending. It's like n...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Argh! When a romantic heroine decides that DESPITE ALL THE EVIDENCE, the sexy leading man is not really interested in her, so she must nobly and self-protectively dismiss all his attempts to talk to her, said heroine comes off as either really coy or just dumb. I don't want to read about this kind of of heroine. Jennifer Crusie manages to write excellent romances which don't keep the couple apart for a 100 or so pages on the basis of the heroine's willful misunderstanding. Every time I read one...more

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Jun 06, 2011 Celia rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who don't take their mass market reads so seriously; romantic & comedy - lovin' readers

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 01, 2013 Susana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2013

I have to say that the reasons I am giving it 4 stars are not the same reasons why I normally give a book this rating. First, I don't read romantic novels. Normally. I don't read chic-lit even if I'd love to love the genre. Unfortunately, I love drama because it feels more real than the too-good-to-be-true romances.
I asked a friend a pile of books of this kind because I needed to do some research for something I am writing and this book captured my interest for a few reasons:

- the main charact...more

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Sep 16, 2009 Leah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-2009

Laura Horsley is devastated when the bookshop where she works is about to close. With no immediate plan for future work, she ends up agreeing to organise a literary festival deep in the English countryside.

Laura has no idea how to organise a literary festival and soon starts to panic. Not only that but Laura inadvertantly makes people believe she knows Dermot Flynn, a reclusive writer struggling with writer’s block.

Laura sets off to Ireland with her friend Monica to track down the elusive Dermot...more Laura Horsley is devastated when the bookshop where she works is about to close. With no immediate plan for future work, she ends up agreeing to organise a literary festival deep in the English countryside.

Laura has no idea how to organise a literary festival and soon starts to panic. Not only that but Laura inadvertantly makes people believe she knows Dermot Flynn, a reclusive writer struggling with writer’s block.

Laura sets off to Ireland with her friend Monica to track down the elusive Dermot Flynn…

Katie Fforde’s books always follow the same winning formula: heroine of the story needs to save/organise something huge, meets man and all is going well until it all goes wrong and it all seems over before the pair before, eventually, it all gets sorted out.

It may sound predictable and to a degree, it probably is predictable but it works so well. I love nothing more than picking up Katie Fforde’s latest book and know that it’s going to all pan out eventually.

Love Letters is another Katie Fforde hit and was very enjoyable. I loved that it was set in the world of books, being a huge fan of them myself. Reading about Laura setting up a book festival was very interesting and really well written. The main plot of the book, though, is Laura going off to find Dermot Flynn and all the ensuing madness. The book doesn’t seem at all rushed, the ending is well done, and I didn’t find myself wishing it would just end already.

I thought Laura was a brilliant character, deciding to change the way her life is going by agreeing to organise the literary festival. I really hoped she would come through and deliver not only a fab festival but also the star attraction in Dermot.

Dermot is the ultimate in brooding writer and I found him very amusing. I found the interaction between himself and Laura worked really well and didn’t seem at all fake. I also liked Laura’s friend Monica, who is in a band and is organising the music festival that was accompanying the literary festival. She was also very amusing and her presence in the book made it all the better.

Another character who I felt had huge influence in the book was Eleanora, Dermot’s agent and the person who gets Laura involved in the literary festival to begin with. I thought she was very witty and also very perceptive. She also makes me wonder if all agents are like that!

The book is full with characters but not so many you forget who they are. Also in the book is Grant, Laura’s gay best friend; Fenella and Rupert, who own the house where the music & literary festival’s take place and who are also friends to Laura; Henry, the owner of the bookshop where Laura works at the beginning of the book. There are also minor minor characters within the book who pop up now and again.

It was an incredibly enjoyable novel and, as always with Katie’s books, is incredibly well written. Katie definitely has the winning formula when it comes to her novels. One final note: I’d love to know where the title come from – Love Letters – I thought the book may have had some love letters within it but there weren’t any which makes the title seem rather weird. Must ask Katie!

Rating: 5/5(less)

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Sep 06, 2011 Vishy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I went to the library sometime back to renew books that I had borrowed – books that I had borrowed many months back and books which I kept renewing every month, instead of reading. I don’t want to give up on the library yet, and so I keep renewing books, but I am a guy who reads my own books more, and so the library book normally stays unread on my desk. But there was a happy development on this side. A couple of weeks back my dad needed surgery and so I had to go to the hospital and stay with h...more I went to the library sometime back to renew books that I had borrowed – books that I had borrowed many months back and books which I kept renewing every month, instead of reading. I don’t want to give up on the library yet, and so I keep renewing books, but I am a guy who reads my own books more, and so the library book normally stays unread on my desk. But there was a happy development on this side. A couple of weeks back my dad needed surgery and so I had to go to the hospital and stay with him. While packing things to take with me, I reached the most pleasurable part of packing – decide on which books to take with me. (I realize that if I had a Kindle or another e-reader, this was not really a decision that I would have needed to make – I can just take the Kindle with its hundreds of books and worry about what I will read later. However, it does take the pleasure and romance out of packing :)) I thought long and hard. I asked myself, whether I should take a comfort read or whether I should take a serious read. Another thing I had to decide was how many books I should take with me. A third question popped up, while I was thinking about this – should I take my own books or should I carry some library books? I decided that I will carry a couple of library books and three books that I own. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to read five books in three days, but I knew that I would be able to read one or two. One of the library books that I carried with me was ‘Love Letters’ by Katie Fforde. I saw it the last time I went to the library, when another member returned it. It looked like a romantic novel. I rarely read romantic novels and so I don’t know why I picked it up and looked at it. After I picked it up, I did what I normally do, when I see a book by an author unknown to me – I looked at what the back cover said about the book. From the back cover, I discovered that the story involved a young woman working in an indie bookshop in England which is closing down, a literary festival, a recluse Irish writer who hasn’t written for years, creative writing workshops and all things literary. How can a book lover resist this? I immediately grabbed the book and borrowed it and took it home. When I was waiting in the hospital during my dad’s surgery and then later, waiting for him to recover, I sat at the café in the hospital and read the book from the beginning to the end. Inspite of the anxieties involved in any hospital visit, it was a fun two days of reading. Here is what I think about the book.

What I think

‘Love Letters’ is about a young woman called Laura Horsley, the story’s heroine, who works in a indie bookshop. Unfortunately, the bookshop is closing down soon, because the owner wants to retire from the business. Laura organizes one last author event at the bookshop. After the event she meets a literary agent, Eleanor, who is impressed with Laura’s work, requests her to help out in a literary festival that her niece is organizing. Laura is in two minds about this – she likes the idea, but she has never been involved in the organizing of a literary festival, except for bookshop author events. She feels that she doesn’t know much about the nitty-gritty of organizing literary events. But her bookshop friends compel her to attend the first meeting called by the literary festival organizers and there, an interesting and impossible task falls on Laura’s head – she has to convince the famous Irish writer Dermot Flynn, who is Laura’s favourite writer, but who is also a recluse like Salinger, who hasn’t written anything for years, to come to the literary festival and give a talk. The sponsorship of the festival hangs on Dermot Flynn being able to attend the festival. Laura goes to Ireland with her musician friend in search of Dermot Flynn. She stumbles upon him by accident. She finds that he is infuriatingly attractive but he is also temperamental and is stuck with a serious case of writer’s block. She also finds herself falling in love with her favourite author. Is Laura able to get Dermot Flynn, who is famous for never leaving his Irish village, to England for the literary festival? Does Dermot Flynn respond to her love? The answers to these questions form the rest of the story.

I loved ‘Love Letters’. But I should tell you more about it, because when I say ‘I loved it’, I don’t mean that ‘I admired it’. I loved the way the book depicts the literary world of today – how indie bookshops are closing down, how everyone is trying to work in an internet company or in a financial services company, how accounting is regarded as a ‘useful’ course, how graduates of the softer subjects like literature, philosophy, classics are looked down upon and how parents discourage their children from studying these subjects in university, how it is difficult to make a living as a writer, the excitement and the nuances of organizing literary festivals, the interesting facets of creative writing workshops, the unspoken hierarchy among different genres of fiction and the authors of different genres – the book depicts these and others quite beautifully. I loved the literary part of the book very much. After all, wasn’t that what grabbed my attention in the first place? I liked the romance part of the book too – the romance between Laura and Dermot. It showed that writers are also normal people, though Dermot is depicted as a Adonis-like character in the book. But I felt that the romance part of the book was also a bit weak, because the way that Laura and Dermot have misunderstandings and the way they make-up aren’t depicted smoothly, and those transformations of the heart are sometimes too predictable. If I compare ‘Love Letters’ with other favourite romances of mine – like ‘London is the Best City in America’ by Laura Dave or ‘The Undomestic Goddess’ by Sophie Kinsella or ‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell or ‘Book Lover’ by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack – I think ‘Love Letters’ falls short. I also feel that it could have had a better title, because ‘Love Letters’ doesn’t begin to describe the literary part of the book (of course it can be understood as comprising of two love letters – a love letter to literature and a love letter to love :)). But the book makes up for all of these shortcomings by its depictions of the literary world. And for that it wins my love and affection. And the romance part of it is not that bad – it was enjoyable and a pleasure to read.

If you like literature and romances, you will love this book.
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Mar 16, 2011 Phoebe rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fluff, romance

26-year-old bookshop employee Laura is unusually up on modern fiction and manages to impress an agent at an author signing. The agent asks her to help plan a local literary festival; a rich potential sponsor says he'll support the event only if they can get notoriously reclusive Irish writer Dermot Flynn to headline. Predictably, Laura is the one who travels to his little Irish village to meet him and attempt to convince him to come. Predictably, he is rock-star handsome, and falls for Laura, al...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Elvia rated it 2 of 5 stars

So, it's a romance set in England and parts of Ireland. I don't know whether it was because it was a romance, the protagonist was so dense, or it was so slow moving but it was hard going. I couldn't relate to the character although there were aspects of her that were very relatable. I enjoyed reading about the publishing industry and the dynamic between the heroine and the hero was a tad unbelievable.

Laura, a bookshop worker has always loved books. When her shop closes she is found with a lack...more

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Jun 23, 2009 MB rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: romance-contemporary-or-chick-lit

If you're interested in finding out about starting an amateur literary festival and a backstage look at the authorial and publishing life, then this book may be a good read for you.

I found that I did not care at all for the romance in this book, because I found the 'hero' distinctly unlikeable and that influenced my enjoyment. I kept hoping that someone...anyone else...would appear like Young Lochinvar and 'save' her. The heroine was okay, but not charming enough to convince me that her 'happy...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Susan J. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, romance

I was delighted by my first reading of a Katie Fforde book. Love Letters follows shy, insular Laura through a major change in her life. Her employer decides to close the book store where she works forcing her to leave the comfort of being surrounded by shelf after shelf of books. Fortunately, she finds new opportunities to use her extensive literary knowledge including the starting of a literary festival in the English countryside. She gets roped into convincing a reclusive Irish author to come...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Dizzyc rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Blurb
With the bookshop where she works about to close, hopeless romantic Laura Horsley recklessly find herself agreeing to help organise a literary festival deep in the heart of the English countryside.

This one hit the spot for me. I like a Chick Lit when I need cheering up or after a heavier novel. My last novel was historical fiction and I wanted a change of pace to a faster, funny read.
Katie Fforde provides all we need in a Chick Lit - sassy characters, a will they won't they romance and...more

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Feb 24, 2012 ~sharren~ rated it 3 of 5 stars

Enjoyable story. I found the conversations weak on times, and the "crack" joke was far too overused, at least three times that I noticed, amusing the first time, a bit disappointing the second time and when it was "explained" the third time it really weakened it.

Reading this book for me was a bit of personal inspiration, I realised that my own book needs a more developed plot, and whilst my characters are great, I really need to focus on one of them rather than all of them.

I have to say though...more

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Mar 03, 2011 Regina Spiker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Romantic. Hilarious. Absurd. Witty. I love Katie Fforde's novel - always guaranteed many giggles and laughs. Shy Laura had a wonderful job at the local bookshop, didn't pay much, but she loved her job. As the bookshop prepares to close, to tide her over until she finds a new job, Laura uncharacteristically, agrees to chair a literary festival. There was one author, a sexy, reclusive Irish writer named Dermot Flynn whose works Laura loved since her college days, and Laura is hopeful that he will...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Ruth rated it 3 of 5 stars

What do you do when the bookstore that you have loved working in is about to close? Laura and her co-worker, Grant are about to find out. Laura has arranged a final author visit and during this time she meets the author's agent, who is a pretty scary, flamboyant, out there kind of lady. She takes a liking to Laura, however, and sends Laura out to her niece to help arrange a book festival which her niece and her husband are trying to arrange in order to support the huge estate that they have inhe...more

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May 04, 2013 Redfox5 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: chick-lit, england, fiction, ireland, romance

This is a book about a girl called Laura who likes books. So that appealed to me straight away. I did feel like I'd read this before, although thats not unusual with chick lit so I carried on. I did like the story but got annoyed with Laura for not just listening to Dermot. She was ignoring his calls and deleteing texts before she had even read them. WHO DOES THAT!? How could you not want to know what was inside a text? If she had read a text message or two she would have saved herself alot of t...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Elenrik rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was my first Katie Fforde book and I loved it too much! Although there were times when some scenes were irrelevant, boring and sadly elongated, I must say I'm impressed that she somehow managed to intertwine both romance and comedy in an unbelievably successful way.

I loved the story. One simple girl who ends up with the man of her dreams. No surprise... just like any other fairytale. I love fairytales. But what made this story different was because of the characters in it. Katie Fforde deli...more

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About Katie Fforde

Catherine Rose Gordon-Cumming was born 27 September 1952 in England, UK, the daughter of Shirley Barbara Laub and Michael Willoughby Gordon-Cumming. Her grandfather was Sir William Gordon-Cumming. Her sister is fellow writer Jane Gordon-Cumming. Katie married with Desmond Fforde, cousin of the also writer Jasper Fforde. She had three children: Guy, Francis and Briony and didn't start writing befor...more

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Quotes from Love Letters

“Laura read a lot. She lived alone in a tiny bedsit and her television was so small and snowy she didn"t watch it much. But she read all the time: at bedtime, while she ate, while she cooked, while she dressed and while she brushed her teeth. She would have read in the shower if she could have worked out a method that wouldn"t completely ruin the book. In the same way she could read anywhere, she could read anything, and if it was good, enjoy it.” — 16 people liked it

“She much preferred to be safely on the outside of life, watching, than deeply involved.” — 5 people liked it

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