The Words Between Us - Erin Bartels

Catalogue copy: Robin Windsor has spent most of her life under an assumed name, running from her family’s ignominious past. She thought she’d finally found sanctuary in her rather unremarkable used bookstore. But the store is struggling and the past is hot on her heels.

  When she receives an eerily familiar book in the mail on the morning of her father’s scheduled execution, Robin is thrown back to the long-lost summer she met Peter Flynt, the perfect boy who ruined everything. But why would Peter be making contact after all these years? And why does she have a sinking feeling that she’s about to be exposed all over again?

This is the second novel from Erin Bartels, who is rapidly becoming a ‘must read’ author for me. Like her first, We Hope for Better Things, this is set across two time periods, but in this story the time periods are within Robin’s lifetime, and we see the impact of the events of her childhood and youth on her adult self in the ‘now’ sections.  

What I love about Erin’s storytelling is that it is so immersive.  From the fantastic first lines: ‘Most people die only once. But my father is not most people.’ and through the 300+ pages which follow, the story rushes at a breathtaking pace sweeping the reader along with it.  

We begin the story at the point where Robin’s Dad is due to be executed.  On this difficult day, she receives a book in the post. Which may not seem odd for a used bookshop owner, but THIS book is not just a rare first edition copy of Catcher in the Rye, but the actual copy given to her by her childhood friend Peter Flynt, twenty years before.  Someone she’s not been in touch with for a very long time.

It’s hard to write much about the story without introducing spoilers, because this is a book where a lot happens, and there are plenty of twists and turns.  There are a few red herrings in the plot and a few threads which aren’t neatly sewn up by the end, and the last sentence of the second to last chapter felt more like the end of the book than the actual end of the book!  

The characters are well described and three-dimensional and one of my favourites is The Professor! I shall say no more about him here, except that the reader is in for a treat.  The power of words is the theme of the book, and this comes through in the books mentioned throughout, and in prose, poetry, thoughts – and silence.  

Although this is categorised as women’s fiction, there is a very strong mystery thread – or rather multiple threads.  I like this in the books I read, so I hope it’s a trend which will continue into Erin’s next book.  Which I hope will be coming soon.

Definitely a ‘recommended read’, but I recommend you read it when you have time to sit down and tune everything else out!

This review is based on a pre-publication manuscript, so some elements may have changed on publication. In the interest of transparency I work with the Revell fiction list, in the UK. However I am not obliged to review any particular book, nor to write positively about it. The comments in my review are entirely my own.