This request is from Sarah:
Inspired by The Killer Question by Janice Hallett ( A | BN | K | AB ), which is told through group text threads, email messages, and 1-star Google reviews, I’m curious what everyone’s favorite epistolary romances are lately. I’m especially curious about modern epistolary stories told through group texts and similar (look I just want to read the group text chain, I’m not ashamed!) because the communication styles are so different depending on the digital venue.
Alison: I love how Sarah MacLean uses letter excerpts in A Rogue By An Other Name.
I just finish Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson ( A | BN | K | AB ) and that contains some pretty long email chains between the main characters. But I’m a big audiobook reader, and having to hear “from [email], [subject], [time]” over and over before actually getting to the text of the email was exhausting. Same thing happened with Red, White & Royal Blue. Though both of those books use emails, texts, and social media posts really well. There’s gotta be a better way to translate that to audio.
Sarah: OH my gosh, yes. I had the same problem with the footnotes in the Catherine Mack series.
Amanda: Not a romance, but I’ll forever sing the praises of Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. There are interview transcripts, diary entries, etc. And surprisingly works well on audio.
I think I remember there being a trend of “wrong number” type romances with accidental texts, but none I can think of that I’ve actually read and would recommendation.
Please let us know your favorite epistolary books in the comments below!
