Just as war seeks to destroy lives, letters serve as emotional lifelines, maintaining human connections and hope. In 1914, Belle Reilly leaves her London hat shop to drive ambulances in France while her husband serves at Ypres. A year later, eighteen-year-old Beth Healey makes sure the post reaches the men at the front. And a modern-day writer opens a parcel from Germany to find her grandmother's face in a painting. Keep the hankies handy!
Lesley Pearse, 'The Promise' - London, 1914. When her husband Jimmy is sent to Ypres, Belle Reilly volunteers as a Red Cross ambulance driver in France, where a man from her troubled past puts her loyalty to the test.
Kristin Harmel, 'When We Meet Again' - Out-of-work writer Emily Emerson receives a painting of her late grandmother from Germany, with a note saying 'Your grandfather never stopped loving her', and traces it back to Florida's wartime POW camps.
Poppy Cooper, 'The Post Office Girls' - London, 1915. With her twin brother Ned at the front, eighteen-year-old Beth Healey joins the Army Post Office depot in Regent's Park, keeping the troops' letters moving, until her new life starts to unravel.
