Loved the story and characters. It had a familiar flow but the author told it wonderfully adding in just the right amount of extra to leave it different and the reader smiling. I think the only downside to the whole book was that it was simply too short. Not that there were too many loose ends but that it was over too quickly.

Sylvia Stafford’s life was turned upside down when the man she loved went off to fight in India & never replied to the letters she wrote, then her gamester killed himself leaving her destitute and alone. She finds work as a governess in a merchant's household in Cheapside. Isolated from the fashionable acquaintance of her youth, she resigns herself to lonely spinsterhood until two years later a mysterious visitor convinces her to temporarily return to her former life and her former love.

Colonel Sebastian Conrad is no longer the dashing cavalry officer Sylvia once fell in love with. Badly scarred during the Sepoy Rebellion, he has withdrawn to his estate in rural Hertfordshire where he lives in near complete seclusion. Brooding and tormented, he cares nothing for the earldom he has inherited--and even less for the faithless beauty who rejected him three years before when she never replied to his letters.
A well written clean romance of misunderstandings & second chances. Sebastian is dark & brooding having never really grieved for his father & brother, he also thinks his injuries now label him as a beast, it takes Sylvia to make him realise that he shouldn’t hide away but be proud that he fought, was injured & survived. Sylvia was shunned after her father died but managed to find employment & make a life for herself, I would have like for the pair to have ‘rubbed a few noses in it’ to some of the supposed friends. The characters are well developed & on the whole likeable. Quite a short book that I read easily in a day & really enjoyed, I was taken on an emotional journey especially when Milsom returned from London. I look forward to reading more from the author

What a wonderful well written story! It was a pleasure to read it, a real page-turner, I’ve read it in one setting.
It has some of my favorite tropes and themes – the wounded hero, the second chance romance – and it’s all so well crafted and perfect.
But I think what captivated me the most was the process of bringing back together these two very lonely people who loved each other but had both resigned themselves to live alone and even built an acceptable existence within that melancholia.
The prose was elegant and fluid, the pace steady and even the misunderstandings and the lack of communication were well done and believable.
Both main characters are strong and well developed and there’s also a cast of good side characters. The dialogue is great too.
The hero is not the typical dashing hero in that he wasn’t handsome prior to his injuries; he’s the standard former military, imposing and overbearing. I liked that the author didn’t forget his appearance throughout the story (even though I’ve yet to find an author that fully addresses the implications of one eye blindness).
I thought that the story was well researched historically, because whenever the characters were breaking or ignoring the social norms they were aware of it.

Do you like novels with place of action located in Victorian England? According to my experience so far, there are readers who like this kind of literature, while on the other hand, there are those who can not "digest" them under any cicrumstances. Surprisingly, since I do not consider myself to be a hopeless romantic, and I rarely come up with books from the category of love novels (and other similar categories), the Victorian atmosphere attracts me so much that I can not resist them. So, the subtitle of the „Lost Letter“ –„ A Victorian Romance“ was enough to interest me for reading this book.
Sylvia Stafford is a governess in the Dinwiddy family, but only three years earlier she had a completely different life and was a respected member of the English high society. Among the many suitors who gave her their attention, Sylvia's heart was stolen by a young soldier, Colonel Sebastian Conrad. Though mutual, their love affair is a bit controversial. Both of them change drastically in the years preceding to the time of action, and while Sylvia remains without family and friends, but also without money and social status, which leads her to the job of a governess, Sebastian comes back from his military task in India, where he was severely wounded, and he learns that the death of his father and elder brother made him an heir and the new Lord Radcliffe.
Although it appears that Sebastian has everything a man could ask for, he retires himself and has no desire to return to the society. The only thing that keeps him alive is the memory of a lost love. It is here that his decisive sister Julia stands in the scene, determined to find Sylvia and return her to Sebastian's life. The following is, of course, a classic Victorian plot, limited by the social rules and norms of that time, in which the letters, mentioned in the title, are the key to the solution and an happy ending.
Sounds like a typical love story? Exactly! The Lost Letter is a typical Victorian love story without so many surprises. Although the relationship between Sylvia and Sebastian is interesting, for a better impression of the book itself, I missed a little more background work, activities of side characters, more descriptions of the ambience, and a rich network of social relationships in Victorian England. However, it is quite a decent reading material for relaxation for all the readers of romantic nature.

I am a sucker for proper romances. I enjoy seeing a couple figure out that they need each other without having to have all the explicit details of their love making. However, this one had a few shining moments and the story/plot is interesting, misunderstandings are always to be found in courtships, but after reading this one I really wanted more. This novel felt more like a Novella. The couple's courtship had already happened in the past and I really wish there had been more "courting" done in this part of the story. Sebastian spent years as a soldier and returned badly scarred emotionally and physically. He is now gruff and angry, how does Sylvia, who has had her own set of struggles and changed circumstances, get on with the new man. I felt like their whole relationship is based on the feelings of three years ago and not who they are now. A little time exploring who they are now would have felt a little more real and less rushed.

Good, quick, clean read. I liked it.

this book was fun to read, I liked the characters and the story line was very good. Real world situations made it believable. At times it felt a little stiff to me. It was well worth a read if you like a little bit of mystery and crime and a lot of romance.

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Wow, Lady Harker, you don't pull any punches.

Button was a turd. She knew that Sylvia thought of her as a mother figure. She could have stayed in touch, at least.

He sounds like a stalker.

It sounds like Julia had a love match, then. Good for her.

Wow, his hearing really is sharp!

Not really the best approach to courting, buddy.

Both the train and the inn sound like dangerous prospects in this instance.

Milsom plays him like a fiddle.

I can't imagine going from rich one day to poor servitude practically the next.

He takes offense with everything she says. It's all in your imagination, Sebastian!

Um, Julia? Telling that lie was wrong on so many levels.

Well, to be fair, he did kind of forget to mention that he'd like a wedding before the bedding.

That's a good letter. No wonder she thought he'd rejected her.

Julia is not really good with coming up with lies. But she is funny!