Random Things Tours: The Lost Chapter by Caroline Bishop

 

Not all women friendships are the some, and not all the lost friendships stay broken. Lilli and Florence went on separate pathways many decades ago. Something happened between them in a way that their friendship was for ever lost. It may be that coming-of-age kind of story that many of us went through at least once. Once you grow up, your interests and tastes in other human may change. However, in this case, there is more than that...

The Lost Chapter by Switzerland-based British writer and journalist Caroline Bishop is a question about friendship and its limits and fragility. Separated for decades, Florence is reconnected to her long lost girlfriend through a book. A book called The Way We Were, inspired by their life as it once was. The separation took place in 1957, long before the times when it is so easy to check online the whereabouts of a former acquaintance. In a way, it is better this way, mourning the friendship, never actually to go back in time. What happens between Florence and Lilli though is a story staying alive in the timeless life of a book. By putting it down on paper, Lilli saved their story from oblivion.  

There is a lot of tenderness and human kindness in this book. The memories, no matter how painful they were once, soothened the wounds. Then, it was a heartbreaking ´goodbye´, but it was the only one. Meanwhile, the heart learned to stay stronger, much stronger. 

From the very beginning of the book, we know that there is a mystery to be revealed, but that kind of human mystery that needs to be discovered slowly, as it has to do with feelings and emotions and humans are such fragile creatures. I love the fine empathic approach the authors had on her characters. It is such a beautifully human way of treating each other, even if only as the complex creatures of our imagination.

Personally, I didn´t feel always the precise historical context of the timeline, moving back and forth from the end of the 1950s to current times, but the characters themselves are out of time and one can relate with no matter the age and the historical period of time one lives in.

The Lost Chapter is a kind of book that makes you longing for the lost friendships. Not all of them can be brought back to life in the pages of a beautiful book.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour, but the opinions are, as usual, my own