Publishers Weekly
03/25/2024
A woman learns her late grandmother was once a Hollywood starlet in the intriguing latest from Callahan (Searching for Grace Kelly). Kit O’Neill, a junior news program producer in Manhattan, is going through her recently deceased grandmother Nancy’s belongings when she comes across a playbill for a 1959 production staged on Martha’s Vineyard starring Mercy Welles. While searching on the internet for the actor, Kit is surprised to discover Mercy and Nancy were the same person. Eager to find out why her grandmother abandoned her acting career, Kit travels to Los Angeles and later to Martha’s Vineyard to search for answers. In a parallel narrative set in 1959, Mercy rents a cottage on Martha’s Vineyard to recover from a bad breakup from her Hollywood director boyfriend. While on the island, she agrees to appear in a local production of The Rose of Aquinnah and embarks on a romance with Ren Sewards, a taciturn oysterman. As Ren and Mercy get closer, she seeks answers about his broken relationship with his family and encounters danger when she gets too close to the truth. Callahan skillfully blends notes of mystery and romance in this layered story of family secrets. Readers will have a hard time putting it down. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (May)
From the Publisher
Compelling and evocative, The Lost Letters from Martha’s Vineyard is a page turner of the highest order. Michael Callahan’s novel does what few books do; it glued me to my seat. It is a great mystery with great insight into the secrets everybody keeps." — Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Resurrection Walk
“Michael Callahan’s The Lost Letters from Martha’s Vineyard grabs from the first line and doesn’t let go until the last. This delicious mystery will be a particular treat for fans (guilty!) of vintage Hollywood and Nancy Drew.” — Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye and The Wildes
“I was completely captivated by Michael Callahan’s The Lost Letters from Martha’s Vineyard. It’s a history mystery you won’t be able to put down, with strong female characters and plenty of secrets. Plus, it takes you behind the scenes in vintage Hollywood and Martha’s Vineyard. A perfect beach read!” — Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Loyalty and The Truth About the Devlins
"The New York of the 1950s shines through Callahan’s pages. His characters’ breathless excitement with their new lives pulls you into that time and place, and his deft plotting holds you there.” — New York Times Book Review on Searching for Grace Kelly
"Callahan, who has convincingly researched the era. . .writes page-turning prose and gets the characters' big arcs right." — Elle on Searching for Grace Kelly
“Callahan has a knack for nailing the perfect detail to take a reader back to a particular time and place; this story of three spirited young women is full of the glamour of New York City’s Barbizon Hotel in 1955. The dialogue sings, and the pacing was perfect. It’s a gem of a story.” — New York Times bestselling author Laura Moriarty on Searching for Grace Kelly
“A wonderful champagne bubble of a book—glamorous, aspirational, and relatable! The fifties never seemed so fun! Wicked, naughty, and clever.” — New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz on Searching for Grace Kelly
“Inspired by a true story, this delightful novel is like an old black-and-white movie translated to the page, perfectly capturing the era as it serves up breathless romance and a heart-pounding plot." — People on The Night She Won Miss America
Kirkus Reviews
2024-03-23
A breezy, atmospheric novel dripping with secrets.
When their beloved grandma Nan dies, sisters Kit and Claire O’Neill must empty out her house in suburban New York. In the attic (where else?), Kit discovers artifacts revealing their grandmother’s hidden life as a young movie star in Hollywood. Kit, now a cable news producer, and Claire were raised by Nan after their parents died. Stunned by what she’s uncovered, Kit vows to learn how Nebraska-bred Edith Stoppelmoor became Tinseltown’s Mercy Welles...and then left it all behind. The novel shifts back and forth in time, from Mercy’s exploits circa 1959 to Kit’s sleuthing in 2018 and beyond. An up-and-comer in Hollywood, Mercy already has an Oscar nomination when we meet her. But after she finds out her fiance is two-timing her, she decides to take some time off in Martha’s Vineyard, the fabled island off the coast of Massachusetts. There she meets Ren Sewards, an oyster fisherman estranged from his wealthy family. The two fall in love, and Mercy becomes involved in some serious island intrigue that may involve a killing or two. (A key scene takes place on Chappaquiddick, the tiny nearby island where Sen. Ted Kennedy famously drove his car off a bridge, triggering a major scandal.) Meanwhile, Kit is piecing together Mercy’s story and ultimately winds up on the Vineyard herself, where she meets an attractive young man who could be connected to the decades-old mysteries. Callahan does a nice job describing the Vineyard and its storied past. While his dialogue is stilted in places, and there are a couple of lapses in logic (would Ren really know that Humphrey Bogart line from Casablanca?), the tight plotting carries you along.
While it isn’t deep, it’s smooth and suspenseful—and hard to stop reading once you’ve begun.
