Release Date:  December 6, 2016

Book Blurb from Goodreads.com:

A year ago, Dovie Larkin’s life was shattered when her fiancé committed suicide just weeks before their wedding. Now, plagued by guilt, she has become a fixture at the cemetery where William is buried, visiting his grave daily, waiting for answers she knows will never come.

Then one day, she sees an old woman whose grief mirrors her own. Fascinated, she watches the woman leave a letter on a nearby grave. Dovie ignores her conscience and reads the letter—a mother’s plea for forgiveness to her dead daughter—and immediately needs to know the rest of the story.

As she delves deeper, a collection of letters from the cemetery’s lost and found begins to unravel a decades-old mystery involving one of Charleston’s wealthiest families. But even as Dovie seeks to answer questions about another woman’s past—questions filled with deception, betrayal, and heartbreaking loss—she starts to discover the keys to love, forgiveness, and finally embracing the future…

My Review:

This book takes place in 2005 in Charleston, South Carolina. A year ago, Dovie was getting ready to marry her fiance William.  To everyone’s shock, two weeks prior to their wedding William took his own life. Dovie Larkin now spends her lunch hours visiting his burial site, grieving his death and searching for answers. One rainy afternoon at the cemetery, she spies a grieving elderly woman leaving a letter at the grave of Alice Tandy. To protect the letter from the elements, she picks it up and reads it. The letter is written by the elderly woman asking for forgiveness from her child.

Dovie is given access to letters written by Alice that years ago were dropped off at the cemetery.  In 1962, Alice was sent away to an asylum for unwed mothers in England.  She was sent there by her mother to have the child. Alice’s baby was adopted by a wealthy family in the United States.  Alice’s experiences in this asylum were not positive ones and women were treated unkindly.

Dovie befriends the elderly grieving woman, named Dora. Dovie shares Alice’s letters which helps to unlock family secrets. They work together to solve two mysteries:  1. Where was Alice living after she left the asylum? 2. Where is her grown child is today?

The book is told in the voice of Dovie throughout most of the book and through Alice’s letters. There are other characters introduced into the story other than those mentioned. They all become greatly intertwined as they sort out their own sorrows and secrets. This heartfelt touching story had me teary-eyed when I finished it.