Dear Mr. Knightley | Katherine Reay

It's not big secret that I love Jane Austen, so obviously I read anything I can find that has a connection to her work. Dear Mr. Knightley falls smack dab in the middle of that category. It also had the advantage of being one of my favorite formats of fiction, which is the epistolary novel.

Sam Moore had it rough as a kid. A foster kid shuttled from family to family, often abused along the way, she's not aged out of the system but it still connected to a support system. Sam's a reader, and masks her insecurities about, well, everything, by quoting literary passages instead of using her own words. So when a mysterious benefactor makes a full-ride journalism scholarship available she's not quite sure what to do. Writing in her own voice about real things? Is that even possible? To make it more intriguing, the only condition of the scholarship is that she write regular letters to her mystery benefactor (Mr. Knightley) to share how everything is going. But she is never to meet Mr. Knightley, know his true identity or expect a reply.

Obviously this is a great set-up for a slow-burn romance, but the letters also give her an outlet that feels safe to share her feelings/doubt/fears/joys in her own voice.

There's a fairly light-touch Christian/religious aspect to the story but it's actually not necessary (although I'm sure it is to Reay) and it's not preachy. Don't let it put you off from a very fun read with lots of classic literature references to test your memory. I liked it.