The Christmas Eve Letter

By: Elyse Douglas

Narrated by: Madeleine Dauer

Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Thirty-year-old Eve Sharland is browsing a Pennsylvania antique store when she discovers an old brass lantern tucked away on a shelf. She picks it up and sees something behind one of the sooty glass panes. To her surprise, she finds an unopened letter stuck inside.

The letter is postmarked December 24, 1885, and it is addressed to Evelyn Sharland in New York City. Eve gasps and drops the letter. That's her name! The letter is addressed to someone with her name in 1885: Evelyn Sharland.

Eve purchases the lantern and the letter, and returns to her New York City apartment. Later that evening, she opens the letter and reads it, astounded by its contents. She stares at the lantern in wonder and alarm, deeply moved by the story of a tragic romance.

A few days later, following a request in the letter, Eve cautiously lights the lantern. To her utter shock, she finds herself in the past - in 1885 New York City. Eve is thrown into a life far beyond what she could have ever imagined, as she gets involved with one of the richest families in New York City and meets the handsome Patrick Gantly. She must struggle to survive and return to her own time, even as her destiny is changed forever.

©2016 Elyse Douglas (P)2019 Tantor

Obsessed

This book was incredible! The way it’s written is nothing short of beautiful, entertaining, and enchanting. I couldn’t stop! I can’t wait to listen again!

Had potential

The idea for this book had potential, but the execution, both in writing and narration left much to be desired. Many inconsistencies in the story left me sometimes confused and sometimes frustrated. The heroine had too many moments of, to borrow the phrase from the author, "female hysteria". The narrator was very hard to listen to. Not much inflection and many strange pauses.

Not sure if it was the writing or the narrating

I wanted to like this book. It has an interesting premise and I love a good holiday romance but there was something about the writing style that almost seemed juvenile or forced. The way she would describe things almost seemed like she was looking words up in a thesaurus and would get long winded at times and then not explain enough during other times. And I am not sure if it was just the writing or the narrating but it was halting and not smooth. Like you are being read the book aloud in an english class and not by a professional narrator. Overall, I kept trying to make myself listen to it to finish but I couldn't. 3 hours left and I am so annoyed by the book I have no desire to see what happens or hear the narrator anymore.

Christmas Eve letter

Hated to have to put it down. This was a very good book. I will be looking for more from this author.

Enchanting story!

Enchanting story! Loved it! Happy that the story line came full circle. Well narrated too!

Wow! Just wow!

I was looking for a good, heartwarming Christmas story, stocking up for all the baking and holiday preparations. I found this amazing story. So good! So well written! Thank you to the author. I love your imagination! And the narrator was excellent! This story is definitely a keeper.

Love it!

What a f great time traveling story . Perfect listen anytime but especially good near the holidays!

Story:3; Narration:1

Usually, a nice historical time travel story sucks me right in and holds my attention. But the juvenile writing and over-enunciated narration (note: NOT a performance by any stretch of the imagination) in this audiobook made for a frustrating and aggravating listening experience.

Good Audiobook, If Over-Pronounced

Overall a very nice audiobook.

The story was very good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were several unexpected twists that kept it quite interesting for me.

While the narrator did a good job with overall story pacing, characters, and accents, she over-pronounced everything throughout the book. I found this very distracting— it really jogged me out of the listening experience. I would’ve preferred a narrator that didn’t read with such forced diction.

Overall a good audiobook.

Good but not great - sorry

The story itself is very good, but in need of a better proofreader. Wording and choice of words could definitely be improved upon. The narrator sounds like she isn't very experienced. Tone of voice was very similar to the Aussie AI voice on my kindle fire, which is good for an AI, but sad for an Audible book. This author has great potential with a more experienced proofreader and narration. I definitely enjoyed the story.

Really dull, had to give up

I was looking forward to this, but I just can't get into it. The narration is really robotic, and there's so much unnecessary detail in the story that the combination of the two is making it boring. I hate giving up part way through, but I just can't carry on with this one unfortunately

Great read

I really enjoyed this book .
It was well written and well narrated.
I cannot wait to read the next one.

Sooooo drawn out and boring

Purchased this based on reviews. But after trying to get into it for 2+ hours, I just gave up. There’s too much mind numbingly irrelevant information. I don’t care what colour and condition the protagonist‘s dog’s fur is or anything else about him, when he plays no significant role in the narrative. It feels like the author is adding unnecessary padding. I suspect this might appeal to the Mills and Boon crowd if they have patience, but 2 hours in I wasn’t caring about any character or their dog!

A good listen not only for the winter

This is a good one. The story is quite enchanting and gripping. Just as for my personal taste the descriptions might seem sometimes a little bit pretentious. I don't like having all the details of what someone was feeling in that particular moment or how they were clenching something if there're many other details already. Also, all those books are built up on a particular scheme and it's clearly visible. The scheme that all the guides tell you to use. The thing is the tension is sometimes also built up too much. I had to forward the audio when she finally started fighting with matches after all other difficulties had piled up. Oh, God, not my element, really.
BUT.
As I've said, this is my personal taste. And such detailed despriptions might be a good point if we talk about the 19th century writings. Only there aren't so many nature descriptions in fact but still it makes it somehow closer to 1885.
Anyway, what startled me most at the end of the book is that Patrick seems to have lost his identity with his timetravel. Not only when it comes to his ID card and no record of his birth in the modern world but literally. So far he'd been an intelligent man who didn't sit in silence and when he got out of the hospital he didn't seem to speak much and his lines were rather dull and nothing meaningful.
One more thing: don't look for any scientific accuracy of time travels and you won't feel disappointed.

Fantastic

This book was absolutely Fantastic even th Narrator it was just an unusual and Different from other books

very good novel

great novel but the reader was very robotic so it sounded very stiff. would have been better with a warmer reader.