This is a book you’ll fall in love with right from the start. The overarching story is a classic tale of a mentor seasoned by life, who befriends and guides someone she sees as a younger version of herself by presenting her with a task that she never got around to doing herself. The mentor in this tale is a groundbreaking career journalist living in rural Pennsylvania who had a nose for great stories, and like many people who write, she always had more story ideas than time to work on them. 



The story begins in the 1990s with the journalist coming across an old post office and general store being torn down in a rural area that was once a bustling lumber mill village called Howe. While poking around the remains of the old post office, she finds a hundred year old packet of “dead letters,” or letters that had never found their way to the addressees. She instantly see the potential for a story of some sort, and keeps the packet of letters.

Fast forward twenty some years. The packet of letters has been stored away all this time. The seasoned journalist makes friends with a younger newspaper reporter who’s recently moved to the area, and decides that she’s the person to take on the ‘dead letter’ project. The young reporter, Jess Weible, accepts the task, and while not having a clear picture yet of where she’s going with it, she senses the tremendous potential of the project.

What unfolds from that point forward is a lovingly told story of a writer becoming one with her subjects, and telling stories that are at times uplifting, and other times heartbreaking. The writers and recipients of the letters were not all local to the area, and their stories lead Jess across the United States, and to Europe, many making their way to descendants of the original addressees. The letters, buried away for over one hundred years, each come to life and blossom, revealing lives long passed, but now suddenly alive again and sharing their secrets.

The one thing that really stands out about this book, and infuses every page, is the passion, enthusiasm, and commitment of the author. Jess begins the project with a clinical eye for detail, but as the stories unfold, they become personal to her, and each letter carries a responsibility that she accepts. I won’t tell you much more other than to read the book as soon as possible. The ending alone makes the book worthwhile. This book tells many tales, and they all come full circle and join perfectly, like dovetailed corners, as the project—now highly personal—comes to its proper and only conclusion.