Becoming Mrs Lewis is the fictional retelling of Joy Davidson, who married C.S Lewis. The novel begins with Joy, an American, in an unhappy marriage trying to bring up her two sons, write and work out what her faith means to her. She begins a letter correspondence with C.S. Lewis and eventually meets him in person during a visit to England. As her own marriage ends, illness repeatedly threatens and she relocates to the UK this story follows her life, love and work.

I think there is always a large amount of courage needed by an author to tackle a real life story and create a fictional account of it, especially of someone whose life is well documented as is the case here. However Callahan stuck well to fact and in the introduction mentions she has been in contact with Joy Davidson’s second son, so this help to place my concerns to one side. I did struggle a little bit with the narrative and writing style of this book to begin with however somewhere between one third to half way through I fell into the story and Callahan had me hooked until the last page. While I felt it lacked a certain spark, it was nevertheless charming and interesting and has encouraged me to do a bit more research into the lives of Lewis, Tolkien and Davidson.

Thank you to Net Galley and Thomas Nelson Publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.