TLC Blog Tour + GIVEAWAY for "The Postmistress" by Sarah Blake

*Please read through to the end of the post for instructions on how to enter the giveaway.*

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake is a deeply emotional journey taken along with two women while a war happens all around them.

The story follows two different women in two different parts of the world who happen to have a connection. Frankie Bard is a an American radio reporter in London in the midst of WWII. Iris James is a postmaster living in a small town on Cape Cod. This a time right before America has been drawn into WWII. Tensions are high and most everyone is worried about the possibility of war at any moment.

This story is not your typical WWII story in that it's not so much about the war, but it's about people and how they react to war. Frankie has gone off to the action to report the news, feeling she is doing her duty. At the same time, in a tiny little town in quiet Cape Cod, is middle aged Iris James, who also feels she is doing her part as postmaster. It's a huge responsibility when every piece of mail goes through your hands during a time when mail is one of the main sources of communication.

I highly recommend this book. It's beautifully written with some very colorful and sometimes quirky characters. It is also a very emotional story. I say that as a bit of a warning. You might want to keep some tissues handy, just in case. The author pulls you into the story emotionally and then keeps you in suspense as the story unfolds. It will challenge you and will keep you thinking long after you've finished the book. It's a story that's relevant to us today and all that's going on in the world around us.

(For my blog readers who only read Christian books, this one is not a Christian fiction title.)

Be sure to stop by here and follow along with all the blog tour stops.


Book Summary:

An ocean apart, two women—Frankie Bard, a gifted, intrepid, and beautiful young radio journalist in London to report on the Blitz, and Iris James, the dedicated, spinster postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts—are entrusted with letters that concern the same man, to be delivered to his newlywed wife. Yet each woman decides not to do so, betraying her solemn commitment to deliver the news, whether by radio broadcast under Nazi bombardment or through the meticulous handling of the mail. The man in question is Will Fitch, a young doctor from Franklin who is moved by Frankie’s dispatches to go to London to treat the victims of the Blitz. Each day, his wife, Emma, enters the orderly realm of the local post office, presided over by Iris, to collect a new letter from Will.


Most of Franklin’s townsfolk—just like the glittering New York society from which Frankie hails—believe that the war in Europe will never touch them. A rare exception is Franklin’s Harry Vale, a mechanic with whom Iris has unexpectedly found a touching, midlife love. For hours each day, from a tower in the town hall, Harry trains his binoculars on the Atlantic, watching for the German submarines that he is certain will wreak destruction on America.

Alerted by her deceased colleague and dear friend to the horrific plight of Europe’s Jews, Frankie asks her boss, the legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, for permission to tell their story. Carrying the first portable voice recorder, Frankie captures their agonizing accounts as she rides the last refugee trains out of Germany in the summer of 1941, and witnesses the systematic brutality with which they are abused and killed by the Nazis. Finding it impossible to convey the full horror of their situation to an America that does not seem to want to listen, Frankie resigns and heads back to the States…with the young doctor’s letter in her pocket. His daily letters to Emma have stopped arriving long ago, and Frankie travels to Franklin to look behind the story of a man and his wife that had long remained in her mind. In ways both expected and unexpected, the war comes home to Franklin.

An utterly enveloping tale of a world conveyed in a voice, and of secrets kept and shared, THE POSTMISTRESS is a challenging meditation on the individual’s responsibility to history, to her country and community, and to herself.


Buy this book here.


Author Bio:

Sarah Blake’s THE POSTMISTRESS was a New York Times hardcover bestseller in the United States and has been sold to publishers in 13 other countries. The novel also won South Africa’s 2010 Boeke “Readers’ Choice Prize,” which is modeled after the UK’s Man Booker Prize and sponsored by Exclusive Books, South Africa’s largest retail book chain.


Born in New York City, Sarah Blake has a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from New York University. She is the author of a chapbook of poems, Full Turn (Pennywhistle Press, 1989), an artist book, Runaway Girls (Hand Made Press, 1997) in collaboration with the artist, Robin Kahn, and two novels. Her first novel, Grange House, (Picador, 2000) was named a “New and Noteworthy” paperback in August, 2001 by The New York Times. Blake’s essays and reviews have appeared in Good Housekeeping, US News and World Reports, The Chicago Tribune and elsewhere.

Sarah lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, the poet Joshua Weiner, and their two sons. For more information on Sarah, visit her website at sarahblakebooks.com.



*If you would like to enter to win a copy of The Postmistress by Sarah Blake, here is how:

1. Mandatory Entry - leave a comment on either blog site along with your email address. You must leave an email address to be entered.

If you would like bonus entries here are some ways to get them:

2. Follow the NEW blog site - follow the new blog site or subscribe to the RSS feeds at the Wordpress site: http://lifeinreviewblog.wordpress.com/ . This is worth 1 extra entry. Make sure you leave an additional comment for each bonus entry.

3. Subscribe to the NEW blog site via email  - subscribe to the Wordpress site via email at http://lifeinreviewblog.wordpress.com/ . This is worth 2 extra entries. Make sure you leave an additional comment for each bonus entry.


I will leave comments open through 3/31 and will announce the winner on 4/1. US & Canada only, please.

This book was provided for review by The Berkley Publishing Group


Blessings,