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The Lost Letters from Martha's Vineyard

by Michael Callahan

A family mystery told across two eras

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praise from Lisa Scottoline

    Lisa Scottoline praises the book as captivating and describes it as a page-turning history mystery.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A family mystery told across two eras

In 1959, aspiring actress Mercy Welles disappears from Hollywood and retreats to Martha’s Vineyard, where her ties to an influential island family complicate a summer already shaped by heartbreak. Nearly six decades later, her granddaughter Kit uncovers a box of keepsakes that challenges what she knows about the woman who raised her. The novel alternates between their timelines, with excerpts from Mercy’s letters adding another layer to Kit’s search. Its historical mystery brings together hidden family history, Hollywood glamour, and the secrets of a close-knit island community.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers who enjoy historical fiction set across multiple time periods.
  • For readers interested in family secrets, mysteries, and stories centered on women.
  • For readers drawn to settings that connect vintage Hollywood with Martha’s Vineyard.

Themes

Family secrets and identityLove and betrayalHollywood and fameIsland community and inheritance

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"I was completely captivated by Michael Callahan's The Lost Letters from Martha's Vineyard. It's a history mystery you won't be able to put down, with strong female characters and plenty of secrets. Plus, it takes you behind the scenes in vintage Hollywood and Martha's Vineyard. A perfect beach read!"--Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Loyalty and The Truth About the Devlins

A tantalizing dual timeline novel of two women bound by blood but divided by a long-buried family secret, and the island that holds the key to the fateful summer that changed everything forever.

In 1959, at the height of vintage Hollywood's glamour, ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director...

Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off.

Almost sixty years later, Kit O'Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother's attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

Putting her investigative skills to use, Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother's hidden past, and the trail eventually leads to Martha's Vineyard.

Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island's wealthy founding families. With her attraction to Ren quickly growing, Mercy soon finds herself entangled in the intrigues of the tightly knit community and the secrets of the Sewards.

Alternating between Mercy and Kit's timelines, including excerpts from letters Mercy wrote the summer she disappeared, this multigenerational saga unfurls into a heart-stopping story of love, betrayal, and even murder in The Lost Letters from Martha's Vineyard.

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