First published 2017
Vienna, 1938. Kristoff is a young apprentice to a Jewish stamp engraver. When his mentor vanishes during Kristallnacht, the Germans force Kristoff to put his skills to work for them. He keeps engraving, but secretly. Alongside Elena, his teacher's fierce daughter, he channels that same craft into forged papers and coded underground messages for the Austrian resistance. Falling for Elena in the middle of wartime chaos costs Kristoff everything, and he fights to get both of them out alive. Fifty years later in Los Angeles, Katie Nelson is sorting through the wreckage of a divorce when she stumbles on her father's old stamp collection. An appraiser named Benjamin spots something strange inside it: a World War II-era Austrian stamp on a letter written in a hand no one recognizes. The two of them start pulling at the thread together, and what unravels is a story of love and loss that crossed decades and continents. The Lost Letter moves between Austria and California to show how one small piece of paper carries the weight of everything that happened to the people who touched it.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, historical-romance
Vibes: atmospheric, emotionally-resonant, intimate, poignant, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: dual-timeline, enemies-to-lovers, found-family, star-crossed-lovers
Setting: Vienna, Austria, Los Angeles, California
Period: 1938, World War II, 1990s
336 pages · Paperback · Riverhead Books
Content warnings: death, war