What a wonderful, touching story. It's full of warmth, love, and gentle humour. It focuses on two people in their later years - Tina, a farmer's wife who lives in Bury St Edmunds, and Anders, a curator at the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark. Tina writes a letter to the museum enquiring about the Tollund Man, the name given to remains discovered of a man from the Iron Age, whose body has been recreated and exhibited at the museum. The letter is addressed to someone else who has died, and it is Anders who replies in his place. These missives are the start of an epistolary romance, though neither person truly knows it is happening. They enjoy looking forward to the other's letters, with each one becoming more personal, so Tina and Anders feel they know each other completely without having ever met. Their letters are so tender, their words so meaningful, you just want to pick up pen and paper and start writing to someone (although they do end up sending each other emails, so they don't have to wait so long to hear from each other). Then one day Tina's letters change in emotion and she tells Anders she can no longer write to him. He is distraught - what has happened in Tina's life to make her act this way?
This book was such a refreshing change to anything I've read recently, and it puts your faith back into true old-fashioned romance.
