#1 New York Times bestselling author Richard Paul Evans returns this holiday season with a tale of love, belonging, and family, following a trail of letters that leads to a Christmas revelation about the healing miracle of hope and forgiveness. After nearly two decades, Noel Post, an editor for a major New York publishing house, returns to her childhood home in Salt Lake City to see her … City to see her estranged, dying father. What she believed would be a brief visit turns into something more as she inherits the bookstore her father fought to keep alive. Reeling from loneliness, a recent divorce, and unanticipated upheavals in her world, Noel begins receiving letters from an anonymous source, each one containing thoughts and lessons about her life and her future. She begins to reacquaint herself with the bookstore and the people she left behind, and in doing so, starts to unravel the reality of her painful childhood and the truth about her family. As the holidays draw near, she receives a Christmastime revelation that changes not only how she sees the past but also how she views her future.
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384 pages
4 and 1 / 2 stars
This is a heartwarming tale of self-discovery. Noel Book Post returns to her hometown of Salt Lake City after a long absence. She is an angry young woman, primarily believing that her father killed her mother when she was a mere child. Noel doesn’t have a clear memory of what happened that evening, but she has been very angry at her father for most of her life. She ran away to New York to work as a book editor. She quit dancing. She refused to speak to her father.
By the time she gets to Salt Lake, her ailing father has died. Noel inherits everything: the house, the bookstore and the life insurance. She meets a variety of people and is often harsh to them.
Noel begins to receive short letters signed by “Tabula Rasa.” Thinking they are from her new romantic interest, little does she know who they are really from.
Very slowly, she begins to realize that she has been so very wrong. She is ashamed and contrite. She grows up quite a bit.
I want to thank NetGalley and Gallery Books for forwarding to me a copy of this wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review.
Noel Post has an attitude problem, made worse by recent events in her life. First, she and her husband divorce, her roommate’s husband is moving back in so Noel is homeless, then her father dies before they could reconcile. She returns to Salt Lake City for the first time in 16 years to find her father has left her his beloved bookstore and home. More upheavals follow and she’s faced with having to accept that her memories of her childhood and family need to be revised and she must accept that her anger at her father may not have been deserved. Coming to terms with her new reality leads her to a future she never imagined.
Be sure to have a box of tissues available when you read this book. Noel’s story is heartbreaking while ultimately being inspirational. The characters are complex – none of the major characters are perfect but have flaws like the rest of us. But they overcome their flaws to live the life they were meant to live. Noel’s anger is understandable, but you have t o wish her father had been honest with her. The letters Noel receives from the mysterious Tabla Rasa are thought provoking, even without the context.
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. The opinion is my own
The Noel Letters by Richard Paul Evans
Book starts out with synopsis of the story and about the author along with other works by the author.
Dedication and prologue where Noel reminiscences about her childhood.
She grew up without a mother for so many of her younger years but she had a neighbor male friend Dylan and his mom always treated her like one of the family.
She is able to do a lot of what she wants, dancing, plays and writing. She ends up with a job in NYC so she leave Utah to pursue that, meets a guy and they marry. She had not invited her father.
She is often mean and she loves her job at the publishing company. When she is summoned home because her father is dying she heads off at the end of October but she is too late. She also learns her roommate wants her to leave because she is reuniting with her ex.
After the funeral she is able to understand a bit of her father’s life with help from the attorney and the bookstore manager.
She learns in time that she is also been fired from her job but feels ok with that because she now has the store to run although she knows nothing about that side of books.
Holiday crush time for the store and they put the hours in to find a packed and busy daily life at the shop. Dylan shows up with his sympathies for her loss and she spends time with him and learns about his life with his daughter.
Love hearing of the downtime they are able to enjoy with one another.
Love how this book got its title and won’t spoil it for you here. Noel gets so many treasured things of her fathers.
Things turn around for her and she wants out of the relationship, out of the bookstore and the NYC job is hers again.
Special people in her Father’s life help her realize the truths of her mother’s car crash and their association with her father. Love hearing of the butterfly connection.
I will ever rarely cry but once during this book I could feel the tears well up behind my eyes, so emotional. Now she’s not sure which way to go, stay or go…
Have read many of the author’s works and truly enjoyed them as they pull at your heartstrings for moments passed by. Love quotes by others at the start of each chapter.
Acknowledgement and about the author are included at the end.
I received this review book from Gallery Books via Net Galley and this is my honest opinion.
Love yourself. Then find something to love beyond yourself. – Grace Potter
I always seem to forget just how much I enjoy books by Richard Paul Evans until I start read another one. And then I kick myself for not picking up one of his stories sooner. I’ve read quite a few of his books and enjoyed all of that I’ve read but there’s still quite a few I still need to get to.
Noel Book Post is a Senior Editor for one of the Big Five publishers in New York City but her life just keeps getting worse. A divorce starts her downward spiral out and then she gets a call to come home to Salt Lake City because her father is on his death’s bed. One major problem – she hasn’t seen or spoken to her father in 16 years since she left Utah as a teen.
She arrives back with incredibly mixed feelings to find out she’s too late to see her father. She then finds out she now owns his successful bookstore plus more.
This is a story about love, loss, and misunderstandings. Noel meets an old boyfriend, Dylan, who has a young daughter and she ends up finding out much more about the father she thought she knew.
Author Evans begins each chapter of the story with some wonderful quotes that I especially enjoyed and thought complemented the book.
I highly recommend this book to readers of Evans, Nicholas Sparks, holiday stories, or readers that just want to read a moving story.
I received this book from Gallery Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and then leave a review or reviews.
The Noel Letters by Richard Paul Evans is so m any things: a fabulous piece of women’s fiction; a lovely Christmas story; a story of redemption; and a beautiful romance. Noel Post is coming home to see her father after years of estrangement. He had contacted her to tell her he was dying. She makes it to Utah four hours after he passed. The ensuing weeks are traumatic, revealing, healing, and full of love from so many sides. The plot is carefully written and paced beautifully. As always, it is the quintessential feel-good novel.
Noel learns much about herself, about her father, about her long-dead mother and about her father’s friends. She was the only one who didn’t think he was special. He life has never been easy, but hen neither was his. This difference was that he was comfortable. She was not. And it showed in every action she took: her discomfort. She hurt so she hurt others, at will. The story holds a lot of truths and lessons for each of us, even if our stories are different. I recommend it as #1 on you Christmas to read list.
I was invited to read a free ARC of The Noel Letters by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #thenoelletters
Thank you to Netgalley, Gallery books and the Author Richard Paul Evans for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is the fourth book in the Noel series.
Again Richard Paul does not disappoint, this was a very emotional read.
A book that exudes the true meaning of love and forgiveness.
While I read this with a total dislike of the protagonist “Noel” the other characters were heartwarming in their own ways but, the more you read the more the story comes together.
I highly recommend this book and the entire series.
Richard Paul Evans has done it again. Another story that leads both the reader and character, on a journey of self-discovery. Even though this is a holiday book; in my opinion the holiday is only part of the scenery in a sense. This is more a story about facing truths about ourselves and things we thought were true.
Noel Book Post blames her father for her mother’s death. Almost twenty years ago, she shook the dust of her hometown from her shoes and never looked back. Over the years her father has tried to find a mid-way point where they could get along without Noel’s animosity toward him. When her father finds out that he is dying with only a short time left; he begs her to come home because there are things that need to be said. Noel reluctantly agrees to return home; leaving her senior editor position at a big name publishing house in New York City back to Salt Lake City, Utah. Unfortunately, her father dies before she arrives. She meets the woman that has worked for her father for many years and who has made all the arrangements for her father’s funeral; leaving Noel with nothing to do but be present.
Noel is reacquainting herself with her childhood home and town. She is still reeling from her recent divorce, is being kicked out of the apartment she shares, then her father’s death, is fired from her job, and inherits her father’s book store. She has been put through the proverbial wringer. She’s angry and scared and feeling sorry for herself. Then she starts getting some mysterious letters that begin to “speak” to her and make her examine some of her choices/decisions of the past and maybe help her find her future.
Such an emotionally charged book. It shows us that recollection of past events as a child is rooted in what is perceived to be the truth at the time. Memories from childhood can be flawed because the knowledge to see things as they really were hadn’t been learned yet. As children most of us saw things as black and white; where there are always shades of grey as well. Does Noel learn this lesson too late? Can she find/see the truth and let it set her free?
I thoroughly enjoyed this story; if you read it, I hope you do as well.
Richard Paul Evans knows how to draw you into in his books and this was another one. This is the story of Noel Book she was estranged from her father for many letters. On his dying bed he asks Noel to come to Utah but when she gets there she is to late. The story has a mystery to as she starts to receive letters from a anonymous person. She starts to meet people that loved her father so much and respected him but she keeps going back to a childhood that she blames her father for her mothers death. This is a beautiful story of forgiveness and love.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, Gallery Books for an honest review. All of Richard Paul Evans are excellent and this one is another excellent story. When it rains it pours is what Noel found out. She got a divorce from her husband, she was going to see her father she hadn’t seen for almost 20 years who was dying, but he died before she arrived and she lost her job. She hadn’t seen her father since he sent her away to school when she was young. When she arrives at her father’s house we meet the people in her father’s life. As I was reading I kept thinking there is more going on here and I was reading as fast as I could because I really wanted to know. Richard Paul Evans is a masterful storyteller and sometimes I cried, sometimes I was saying wake up and see what is in front of you before it is too late, and each page I turned gave no clue to what happened between Noel and her father. Until Noel was ready to hear the truth, we weren’t going to know the whole story. The day did come and it was nothing like I thought but it was oh so good.
I sit here with damp eyes after having just finished reading and loving the Noel letters. I was hooked after the first chapter and read straight through.
This book is in true Richard Paul Evans classic style.
I have loved every book I have read written by Richard Paul Evans since I first read The Christmas Box many years ago, and this is new novel was no exception. The tone and cadence of his writing draws me into the story, and hours later I find myself closing the book with a teary sigh. I love the truths weaved into the letters from Noel’s father to her, and I wish I had them in a bound book to read over and over. This is far from a sappy Christmas story, and I highly recommend it not just during the Christmas season but any time of the year.
This one was brutal, and beautiful, and messy, and emotional…and I loved every word. The literary quotes, the wisdom from Tabula Rasa, the relationship between Noel and each of the secondary characters, as well as the secondary characters and the Robert (Noel’s dad) that we come to know through the eyes of others. I was absolutely delighted by this story of coming home again, all of the precious truths it shares, and the joy that can be found on the journey.
Beautifully written, which is what I’ve come to expect from Richard Paul Evans. I love that the plot of the story tackles the idea that sometimes what we understand/believe when we are a child, needs to be revisited from the perspective of being an adult. This was a wonderful story of forgiveness, and the holiday setting made it an especially lovely read.
Highly recommend.
The Noel Letters is the forth book in the Noel series, but can be read as a standalone. I’ve always thought there should be a gene called “Happily Ever After” and books by Richard Paul Evans would fall into this category. His books remind me of my favorite Hallmark movie in the form of a book.
I wait every year for the holiday season and a new Christmas book released from Richard Paul Evans. He never disappoints!! In this book, he returns with a story of love, family and loss. Noel searches for answers through a trail of letters that will lead her to a Christmas confession of sorts that results in hope and forgiveness. What made the story even more appealing was it all took place with a bookstore backdrop and characters that were lovers of reading. Doesn’t get much better for a book lover!!
I also loved that Evans started each chapter with quotes from various authors. One of my favorites was “Take a book to bed with you —— books do not snore”—–Thea Dorn
The Noel Letters will get you into the Christmas spirit along with making you laugh and cry. The Noel Letters has all the feels!
I recommend all the Noel books for your holiday reading. They are books that the whole family would enjoy listening to while sitting around the Christmas tree drinking hot cocoa.
Thank you to NetGalley, GalleryBooks, Richard Paul Evans for providing me an Advanced Reader Copy of The Noel Letters in exchange for my unbiased review.
An excellent Christmas story with lovable characters who just need to find truth in their lives. Noel returns to her small hometown to settle her father’s affairs after being estranged from him for years and discovers more about herself than she ever thought possible. I really loved how the author reveals the secrets slowly and kept me totally engaged from beginning to end. Although this is the fourth book in the series, I have not read the other books (although I plan to go back and read them now) and I was still able to follow the story. I highly recommend this sweet story to anyone looking for a heartfelt Christmas story.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I checked out a copy of this book from my local library using the Overdrive App. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own.
I like these books because of the quotes at the beginning of the chapters, the space and the way the book is put together and bound. It makes you feel unhurried, as if you’re reading it while sitting all cozy with a cup of whatever warm thing you drink. I did NOT read this in that fashion. I read it while on a fitness machine or while I had a few minutes in the car and basically any time I could snag a few minutes with it. I did read parts of it before bed, and it was a nice one to fall asleep to. I read parts of it at the dinner table even, and it was a good way to slow down and escape my own life during the scamdemic. There were probably a dozen quotables that I will be writing down in my “Keepers” book, some from the story and some from the authors who were quoted at the beginning of the chapters. I liked the ending, and I liked getting to know the stories and I liked the way the stories mysteries were revealed. Another perk was that it was a Christmas book, and I read it in November, so it was something I was ready for. It was sad, it was hopeful, it was revealing, and a bit romantic. It was inspirational and even funny. I loved the part about how we’re all dumb, just in different ways, and odd customers and their questions at the bookstore! I read those aloud to my family, as well as the Groucho Marx quotes, and I’m soon going to make sure our kiddos know who Groucho Marx was, so thanks for that insight…that they don’t know him and it’s time I introduce them. I had almost forgotten about him, and that’s sad. Good job, Mr. Evans. Oh, and readers, if you liked this book, read ALL the other ones by Richard Paul Evans. I’m pretty sure you’ll like them too!
Does not disappoint. I have been looking forward to this book, but honestly thought it would run together with so many other Christmas books I have read. Not even close. I should have known better with Richard Paul Evans. The intro captivated me by the tone set and left me wondering why such a preface was needed. I was hooked all the way through and satisfied with the way things wrapped together. I highly recommend this book. Your emotions will run the gamut and you will be torn between wanting to hurry up and finish to find resolution and taking your time to savor.
What an amazing story. I’ve always love Richard Paul Evan’s books but this one has outdone all of them. I was so engrossed I felt the emotions, heartache and pain of Noel. But I also felt her healing, peace and love so she could forgive. I was so wrapped up in the story I spoke out loud to give her guidance and to weep. I loved the settings, descriptions of everything, characters and watching them grow. This is definitely a must-read. It is one of the most honest, fresh, sensitive, captivating story.
The Noel Letters by Richard Paul Evans is 4th novel in The Noel Collection. Each book in this series can be read on its own. I have enjoyed Richard Paul Evans’ novels since I read The Christmas Box. I thought The Noel Letters to be well-written with developed characters and steady pacing. Noel Post is a woman who has let anger rule her life for too long. Painful childhood memories have influenced her life and her decisions since she was a teenager. After a sudden rash of losses, Noel has some downtime to reflect. She begins receiving handwritten letters that offer guidance, thoughts, quotes, and reflections. Noel can let these special missives help her or she can ignore them. There were several times when I found myself wanting to shake Noel and tell her to open her eyes (and her heart). There were some special characters in this story. Grace, Wendy, and Dylan each had something to offer Noel if only she would let them. I loved the descriptions of the bookstore. It sounded like a special place that would attract bibliophiles. I thought the store’s name, Bobbooks was disappointing and lackluster. It needed something magical and that was not Noel’s choice. I loved the quotes before each chapter about books and writing. There were other quotes interspersed throughout the book. There were some ones that I loved that I made sure to write down. The Noel letters is an emotional story that will tug on your heartstrings. The Noel Letters is a special holiday tale about misunderstandings, second chances, love, grief, books, and forgiveness.