Wilhelmina Mann can never seem to get anything right: her work, relationships and family are all on the rocks. But when she suddenly receives a stack of letters from her long-dead mother, everything she’s ever known begins to change.
On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Wilhelmina Mann is already dealing with more than enough problems, so a birthday misadventure landing her in the lock-up is hardly even a surprise.
But that mistake leads to Wil receiving a packet of old letters; letters to Wil from her mother that were written just before she died, back when Wil was a small child.
Suddenly, Wil’s life is thrown into a new kind of turmoil as she discovers the mother she lost. And while the letters begin as tales of growing up, they soon become a great love story, almost as great as the bond between mother and daughter. Caught in old, unexpected emotions and unresolved hurts, Wil risks everything to journey back to the tiny English village in which her mother grew up, searching for answers in another set of letters she is meant to find there.
But secrets are kept for a reason. Will she find the last letters? And will she want to know what they contain?
Charlotte Nash is an academic who works at the University of Queensland and author of seven contemporary novels, including Saving You and On A Starlit Ocean. Her signature style is smart love stories with a lush sense of place. She continues that here in her latest novel, Twenty-Six Letters, a delightful read with pitch-perfect prose and a wonderful premise.
Right from the get-go, we’re thrown into the chaotic Gold Coast world of Wilhelmina Mann. We all know a Wil or two – heart of gold but notoriously disorganised, always late and often in trouble. It’s clear that Wil’s mother’s death has also left a space in her, one that needs to be filled.
While the idea of letters from a departed loved one isn’t new, Nash uses it well here, driving the protagonist forward, towards healing. I laughed and cried as Wil’s mother was brought to vivid life through her letters. Wil’s adventure from Australia to the UK is also richly imagined, so add this read to your travel fiction pile as well.
Twenty-Six Letters is a captivating novel entwining family, place and identity, the shame of keeping secrets and the liberation of finding them out. Nash really is one of this country’s top women’s fiction authors. I can’t wait for her next novel now.
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