Book Review: The Mailbox by Marybeth Whalen

by Missy Frye

ISBN: 978-0781403696
Page Count: 320
Release Date: June 1, 2010

As a pessimist, it’s difficult to believe one can reconnect with a long lost love and have it amount to anything more than a blip on life’s radar. However, my aunt reconnected with her high school sweetheart after nearly thirty years and has now been married to him for fifteen years. That makes the idea plausible for me and Marybeth Whalen breathes life into it with The Mailbox.

As a teenager, Lindsey is introduced to the Kindred Spirit’s mailbox at Sunset Beach. Her first love, Campbell, encourages her to write her first letter and twenty years later, she’s still making a yearly pilgrimage to the mailbox.

Each letter summarizes what she’s been through during the year. From her love for and broken heart at the hands of Campbell, through her courtship and marriage to Grant, and finally her divorce, she shares it all with a stranger.

When Campbell reenters her life, Lindsey must decide if she’s willing to risk her heart again or protect it.

There are many layers to this novel, and while the Kindred Spirit’s mailbox is prominent, a constant, it isn’t central. It’s more about relationships between men and women, parents and their children, friends and most importantly God. It also touches on how we look at ourselves.

The Mailbox is a good book with characters you’ll love and hate within a story that unfolds easily, though non-linearly. The letters tell the story of the past and they are mixed in with events of the present. Admittedly, halfway through I was beginning to think things were working out too easily but was pleasantly surprised with an obstacle to happiness. Sounds odd, doesn’t it; conflict makes literary worlds worthwhile.

Special thanks to Audra Jennings of The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.

All titles reviewed at Incurable Disease of Writing, including The Mailbox, can be purchased at IDW’s aStore.

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