Dearest Josephine

Love arrives at the most unexpected time . . . 1821: Elias Roch has ghastly luck with women. He met Josephine De Clare once and penned dozens of letters hoping to find her again.2021: Josie De Clare has questionable taste in boyfriends. The last one nearly ruined her friendship with her best friend.Now, in the wake of her father's death, Josie finds Elias's letters. Suddenly she's falling in love with a guy who lived two hundred years ago. And star-crossed doesn't even begin to cover it . . .  “Dearest Josephine is the type of story that becomes your own. The characters’ heartaches worked their way into my own chest until I hurt with them, hoped with them, and dared to dream with them. This book is teeming with swoon-worthy prose, adorable humor, and an expert delivery of  ‘Will they end up together?’ I guarantee you’ll be burning the midnight candle to a stub to get answers. Step aside Pride and Prejudice, there’s a new romance on the English moors.” -Nadine Brandes, author of Romanov“Caroline George infuses an epistolary love story with a romance and charm that crosses centuries. Touching and inventive, it bursts with wit, warmth, and a blending of classic and contemporary that goes together like scones and clotted cream. Dearest Josephine is a delight.” -Emily Bain Murphy, author of The Disappearances “Dearest Josephine is more than an immersive read. It is a book lover’s dream experience.  Josie’s residence in a gothic English manor and her deeply romantic connection to Elias, who lived years in the past, is as chillingly atmospheric as Rochester calling across the moors. This story is George’s treatise on the power of books and character to creep across centuries, to pull us close and invite us to live in a fantasy where we find love-literally-in the kinship of ink and binding. But it also acknowledges the dangers of letting ourselves fall too deeply when sometimes an equally powerful connection is waiting next door. This love letter to books, and the readers who exist in and for them, is a wondrously singular escape.” -Rachel McMillan, author of The London Restoration and The Mozart Code Romantic and evocative read in both contemporary and historical time periodsStand-alone novelBook length: 86,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs From School Library Journal Gr 8 Up-Eighteen-year-old Josie De Clare leaves London, as well as her insufferable mother and ex-boyfriend Rashad, to spend time alone at the estate her father purchased before his death. Through email, she reconnects with Faith, her Italian American best friend. Alone in the run-down estate, Josie describes to Faith the steps she's taking to fix it up. Stumbling upon a packet of letters from 1820 addressed to a Josephine De Clare from pale-skinned, hazel-eyed Elias, whose portrait peers down from above the desk, Josie and Faith, along with handsome local boy Oliver, dig deeper. Josie discovers that Elias, who met Josephine at a dance only once, is infatuated and determined to locate her. He describes Josephine, who with her personality, blonde hair, and slate blue eyes resembles Josie in so many ways that she is certain that they have a connection. Readers follow the story through Elias's letters to Josephine, interspersed with texts from Josie to Faith and Oliver, as well as an unfinished manuscript Elias wrote about his love for the mysterious Josephine. With Josie becoming more convinced that she and Elias are meant to be together, Faith and Oliver are there to remind her that love comes in many forms. VERDICT The overlong passages and jumps from today's texts to Elias's letters and novel do little to move the story forward, but there will be readers for whom this flowery story of star-crossed love, friendship, and angst works well.-Connie Williams, Petaluma, CA About the Author Caroline George is the multi-award-winning author of Dearest Josephine and other YA fiction titles. She graduated from Belmo