Saturday 7 February 2015

Etta and Otto and Russell and James - Emma Hooper

"I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.
Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two she gets up very early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate, and her best boots, and begins walking the 2, 000 miles to water. 
Meanwhile her husband Otto waits patiently at home, left only with his memories. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently - and he still loves Etta as much as he did more than fifty years ago, before she married Otto."



What a lovely, lovely book. The story of Etta and Otto and Russell and James is just incredibly written. The story is told through a series of letters, flitting between the present day when Etta embarks on her pilgrimage to the ocean and Otto's time in the war - each character hooked me in within a few pages and it was easy to become completely emotionally attached to each of them. A beautiful love story, (you can't help but love Otto, waiting patiently at home), reminiscent of Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, I would recommend this to anyone who can appreciate a lovely piece of literature. Emma Hooper is a very talented lady and I look forward to reading more from her in the future. 

Etta and Otto and Russell and James is out now and you can get it here:


I was kindly given an ARC by the publisher and Netgalley. 

No comments:

Post a Comment