Beyond Ivy Walls

Fordham (The Letter Tree) spins a tender tale of faith and new beginnings set in 1903 Iowa. After Sadie West’s father injures himself in a riding accident, the 23-year-old spitfire leaves her family’s farm for the city of Monticello, where she toils at a feather duster factory and sends her pay back home. Unable to afford lodging, she shelters in an abandoned factory behind the Taylor family mansion. When Otis Taylor returns to town to sell the house following his brother Reginald’s death, he discovers Sadie living in the nearby building. The two slowly build a friendship, and Sadie encourages the reclusive Otis, who has prominent scars on his scalp and face from harmful “remedies” for his childhood alopecia, to accept himself through God’s love. As their romance sparks, an unexpected search for Reginald’s illegitimate daughter, who may have been put up for adoption by the child’s mother, throws a wrench in the works. Fordham delicately develops her protagonists’ inner worlds as their love story develops (“He’d known that life... had been lacking, but until this moment, he’d been unsure what exactly he was missing. Now he knew”). It’s a touching, resonant ode to the power of hope. (Aug.)