Review: POSTCARDS FROM THE PAST, Marcia Willett

• this edition published by Bantam, 2013
• ISBN 978-0-593-07151-9
• 299 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (author website)

Siblings Billa and Ed share their beautiful, grand old childhood home in rural Cornwall. With family and friends nearby, and their living arrangements free and easy, they seem as contented as they can be.

But when postcards start arriving from a sinister figure they thought belonged well and truly in their pasts, old memories are stirred. Why is he contacting them now? And what has he been hiding all these years?

My Take

Well, you ask me, is this crime fiction or not? A crime was  committed way back in the past, but that is not really the focus of the story, although it does explain why one of the characters is as he is.

The focus is the mystery behind why their mother's step-son Tris, whom they haven't seen for 50 years, is coming to visit Billa and Ed. The postcards he sends them in the weeks before he arrives have obviously been carefully selected, to remind them of things they would rather forget. And they anticipate his visit with great dread.

It felt a bit gentler than the books I usually read but I read it with great pleasure.  The characterisation was excellent, and the suspense generated by the impending visit was well done.

My rating: 4.4

About the author

Marcia Willett began her career as a novelist when she was fifty years old. Since that first novel Marcia has written twenty more under her own name as well as a number of short stories. She has also written four books under the pseudonym "Willa Marsh", and is published in more than sixteen countries.

Marcia Willett's early life was devoted to the ballet, but her dreams of becoming a ballerina ended when she grew out of the classical proportions required. She had always loved books, and a family crisis made her take up a new career as a novelist - a decision she has never regretted. She lives in a beautiful and wild part of Devon where she loves to be visited by her son and young family.