Dear Readers

[Sarah-Blake]

It's a deep satisfaction to address you-to know that you are out there reading! I am thrilled (and a bit terrified) to think of you bent over my book in the next few weeks, your eyes on these pages, considering. But then I look forward tremendously to the conversation that follows once you have finished. What a privilege, and what a pleasure, for me to have been asked to join the First Look Book Club.

The book you hold in your hands has taken a long while to come through the many thickets of false starts, dead ends, and sudden flashes of insight that demand yet another draft. I have been living with my characters-Iris and Frankie and Emma-for as long as my second child has been alive; in the past eight years I have moved from one state to another, then out of the country and back again, always carrying these women, the London Blitz, the refugees of Europe, in my head. And the crystal summer of 1941, before this country went to war, hovered there at the back of my mind while the present days saw the US invasion of Iraq, the 2006 bombing of Lebanon, and then the election of Barack Obama, a wartime leader whose eloquence seems to reach the old-fashioned, stately heights of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

So it has been with a curious kind of double vision that I have experienced the events of these last several years. And it occurred to me, as I wrote and watched, that though we may be told we are in "historic times," it is nearly impossible to know what that means. What that means on a personal, immediate level, that is. THE POSTMISTRESS, by dint of its long gestation, evolved from a single question-what would happen if a postmistress didn't deliver the mail?-to my fascination with characters caught off guard by war. Caught, that is, in the web of history.

Thank you for being this story's first readers. I so look forward to hearing how it catches you.

Sarah Blake

[dhaupt]

Sarah, thank you for that insight. And let me be the first to say that the pleasure is all ours.

[DSaff]

Welcome, Sarah  Thank you for your wonderful letter. I look forward to reading and discussing your book. Thank you for sharing your words and time with us!

[babzilla41]

Sarah:

It's always nice to hear from the author as to where the thoughts and ideas for a novel came from.  It must've been hard to let go of The Postmistress after carrying it with you for so long and over so many miles!  Thank you for the opportunity to be one of the first to read.  It's been sheer torture to look at that beautiful cover and know that the scheduled reading doesn't start until October 5th.  I can't wait!  Best of Luck to you.

Barb

[Kittysmom]

Hi Sarah, I just want to say that I am looking forward to getting to reading this book and discussing it with you and others!  Thanks for your message and welcome!

Gail

[boadiccea]

Sarah, thank you for sharing your work with us. This is my first First Look experience, and I am very much looking forward to reading THE POSTMISTRESS and discussing with the group.  I can imagine it's quite a feeling to finally have this work launch after carrying it with you for so long!  Thank you for trusting us to be your early audience!  :-D

Beth

[jenieliser]

Sara, I am so looking forward to reading your book! It has been sitting on my night stand waiting to be cracked open, it's screaming to be read. It's killing me to wait to read it! It sounds like a book I will get lost in. Thanks for letting us take a "first look" at it.

[retromom]

Sarah, thanks so much for the peek into how The Postmistress came about. I found it very interesting and can't wait to get started reading. The priviledge and pleasure are all ours to be reading your book first. Thank you much!

[liisa22]

Thank-you Sarah, for sharing with us!   It adds something special to a book to have the authors insights. As always, the pleasure is all ours!  I can't wait to dive into this book; I have been trying very hard to wait to read!  

Wishing you luck!

[JoyZ]

Welcome Sarah and thank you for giving us this opportunity to share in your book.  I am anxiously awaiting getting started and in hearing more of your thoughts and the things that influenced it.

[CathyB]

Sarah:

Welcome to our little group. Looking forward to the discussion.

[Thayer]

Ms. Blake,

Congratulations on the "birth" of your novel.  I sense that your anxiety is for naught, and that we, the readers, will not be disappointed.  Thank you for sharing your time, insights and most importantly  your story with us.

[kolsonheld]

Hi Sarah,

Thank you so much for sharing your book and your time with us. I'm looking forward to the discussion!

[lmpmn]

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us.  I feel privileged to be among the first to read it.  I've read the first couple of chapters and am already very drawn into the characters and their story.  I hope you're very proud of the work you've done.

[jb70]

Sarah,

Thank you for sharing your baby with us.  I cna't wait to get started reading.

Jill

[Tarri]

Welcome to the First Look Book Club.  Your book keeps calling my name, but I refuse to start until the first, of October because I know I will have a hard time not reading ahead. 

Thank you for sharing your work with us. 

[Ronrose]

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share this book with you. We  feel it is a privilege to be in the forefront of the reading public. It is amazing that so many of us have the chance to exchange with you and other authors, our thoughts and incites about your first novels. Again, thank you and the First Look Book Club staff, for the wonderful job you are all doing.

Ron

[Zia01]

Sarah, Thank you for the small peak of the history of this book. I am so looking forward to reading and discussing this in the upcoming weeks.

[BookWoman718]

Sarah,

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us, and agreeing to join in our discussion.  While I admire my fellow readers' great restraint, I must admit that once I'd read the prologue, the rest of the book went down in a matter of days - and some late nights when I just couldn't  stop reading.   It has been a wonderful experience.   Every one of the characters is beautifully imagined;   I could see them clearly as they moved around their town, and the  globe, under the gathering storm clouds of  war.  You've brought three very different, but equally intriguing, women to life, and deepened their portraits with your sympathetic descriptions of the men they met and admired and loved in that terrible time. 

I'm very much looking forward to our discussion, and very grateful that B&N has brought you and the book to us. 

[CatholicKittie]

No, Thank you Sarah.  I keep reading the synopsis and I have to tell myself not to get too anxious because this weekend it was calling my name. :-)  I could just imagine The Postmistress, a cup of tea, a window seat and me, this weekend. 

I can wait for the discussions that follows the weeks to come.  And when I can finally write my review of it!  Gorgeous book cover by the way.  It does it's job.  It makes you want to pick it up and bury your nose in the book.  Yay!

Casse