You Sent Me a Letter

May 2, 2016
In this labored tale from British author Dawson (Little Sister), Sophie Gardener, a woman on the cusp of marriage, wakes up one night to find a man sitting near her bed. The stranger hands her a sealed envelope and instructs her to open and read it to assembled family and friends at her 40th birthday party the next evening. Then he threatens her family if she fails to do as she’s told. In a panic, Sophie immediately concludes that Claudine Dubois, the ex-wife of her fiancé, Marc, is behind the intruder. Sophie turns for support to her sister, Alice, who intensifies the pressure by revealing that her birthday party is actually a surprise wedding arranged by Marc. A series of increasingly hysterical attempts by Sophie to avoid disaster and to keep secret a drunken tryst with Rich Hendersen, the husband of her best friend, precede the ceremony. More travails follow before Sophie eventually learns the bitter, albeit unlikely, truth.

June 1, 2016
Sophie Gardener wakes in the middle of the night to find a strange man standing over her. He hands her letter and tells her that she must open it and read it to the guests at her fortieth-birthday party that night. If she doesn't, her mother, sisters, and beloved niece will all be in jeopardy. Sophie is panicked. What does the envelope hold and whose life will be ruined if she does open and read its contents? In the hours before her party, her mind races to figure out who is setting her up. Is she an innocent pawn? Is her fiance's manipulative ex-wife trying to pry them apart? Is a past indiscretion finally coming to light? The fascinating premise and the race-against-the-clock plot make this a deliciously fast suspense thriller. Though Dawson (What My Best Friend Did, 2010) makes the reveal a little too transparent toward the end, the wild ride is well worth it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)