TW: Grief, death of a family member
Josie De Clare has just discovered that her recently deceased father left behind a crumbling old estate in the English countryside. Dealing with his death, the separation from her best friend, and a recent break-up, Josie decides to spend her gap semester living at/fixing up Cadwallader Manor. While there, she discovers a series of letters and an unfinished manuscript by Elias Welby, a young man who lived there 200 years earlier.
Told through a combination of texts/emails, letters, and the manuscript, Dearest Josephine by Caroline George follows Elias’s obsession with his long lost love, Josephine De Clare, and Josie’s subsequent infatuation with Elias.
This book captured my heart! I haven’t hoped so hard for a romance that spans the centuries since Jamie and Clare. George’s unique storytelling provides an intimate glimpse into Josie’s and Elias’s lives that kept me turning pages late into the night. I loved how the use of era-specific mediums highlighted their differences yet brought them closer together. There were some moments when I struggled to keep the storyline straight between Elias’s letters and his manuscript. I hope it is because I had an eARC and that the differences between the three forms may be more pronounced in final/physical copies. Additionally, the manuscript sometimes felt irrelevant to the main story, though it all pulled together by the end.
I appreciated the realistic way George approaches grief and depression. Both Josie and Elias lose someone close to them, and each deals with it in different ways (both healthy and unhealthy). Though it sounds like a sad story, I was grateful for the constant thread of hope that promised better things to come. The characters’ unique journeys through grief are authentic and believable.
I couldn’t help but see Cath and Heathcliff in Josie and Elias. I even questioned their sanity a few times. Josie could be my best friend. She is funny and confident, but not perfect. She experiences anxiety and struggles to connect to the people in her life. Elias is completely loveable in the way that only a helplessly romantic and charming English bastard could be. However, he sometimes struggles to maintain the standards expected of the social elite.
Though I knew going into it that Josie and Elias are star-crossed, I found myself hoping for an impossible ending, wishing against reason for a happily ever after that could only occur in a work of speculative fiction, of which Dearest Josephine is not. That is how invested I was in this novel. My heart raced—my hands sweat. I fidgeted with anxiety as I followed their story. Now, that’s not to say there wasn’t a happy ending. On the contrary, I was delighted by the end and how Josie and Elias reached their next stage in a carefully constructed and slowly revealed manner that didn’t feel jarring or leave me wishing for the alternative.
I’m not sure this was my clearest and most concise review, so let me summarize by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I recommend it for those who enjoy historical or contemporary romance, or even those who seek the feel of classic literature with a modern twist. This title is set to release February 2, 2021
*It bears noting that this novel is marketed as YA, but would be closer to NA if it were a widely-recognized demographic. The writing is mature and elegant. However, there is no language, sex, or potential triggers that would prevent it from being enjoyed by a younger audience.
Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.