ACCLAIM FOR CAROLINE GEORGE
“Caroline George infuses an epistolary love story with a romance and charm that crosses centuries. Touching and inventive, it bursts with wit, warmth, and a blending of classic and contemporary that goes together like scones and clotted cream. Dearest Josephine is a delight.”
—Emily Bain Murphy, author of The Disappearances
“Dearest Josephine is the type of story that becomes your own. The characters’ heartaches worked their way into my own chest until I hurt with them, hoped with them, and dared to dream with them. This book is teeming with swoon-worthy prose, adorable humor, and an expert delivery of ‘Will they end up together?’ I guarantee you’ll be burning the midnight candle to a stub to get answers. Step aside Pride and Prejudice, there’s a new romance on the English moors.”
—Nadine Brandes, author of Romanov
“Dearest Josephine is more than an immersive read. It is a book lover’s dream experience. Josie’s residence in a gothic English manor and her deeply romantic connection to Elias, who lived years in the past, is as chillingly atmospheric as Rochester calling across the moors. This story is George’s treatise on the power of books and character to creep across centuries, to pull us close and invite us to live in a fantasy where we find love—literally—in the kinship of ink and binding. But it also acknowledges the dangers of letting ourselves fall too deeply when sometimes an equally powerful connection is waiting next door. This love letter to books, and the readers who exist in and for them, is a wondrously singular escape.”
—Rachel McMillan, author of The London Restoration and The Mozart Code
OTHER BOOKS BY CAROLINE GEORGE
The Vestige
The Prime Way Program: Just Strength
The Prime Way Program: Be the Victor
Dearest Josephine
Copyright © 2021 Caroline George
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Published in association with Cyle Young of C.Y.L.E (Cyle Young Literary Elite, LLC), a literary agency.
Interior design: Emily Ghattas
Map design: Matthew Covington
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: George, Caroline, 1997- author.
Title: Dearest Josephine / Caroline George.
Description: Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, [2021] | Summary: “Caroline George sweeps readers up into two different time periods with an unexpected love story that prompts us to reimagine what it means to be present with the people we love”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020032767 (print) | LCCN 2020032768 (ebook) | ISBN 9780785236184 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780785236191 (epub) | ISBN 9780785236207 (audio download)
Epub Edition December 2020 9780785236191
Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories. | Epistolary fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3607.E6394 D43 2021 (print) | LCC PS3607.E6394 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032767
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032768
Printed in the United States of America
2122232425LSC10987654321
For Tessa,
Who believed in this story
before it reached the page.
And for everyone who’s found
love within a book.
CONTENTS
Cover
Acclaim for Caroline George
Other Books by Caroline George
Title Page
Copyright
Map
One: Josie
Two: Elias
Three: The Novel
Four: Josie
Five: Elias
Six: the Novel
Seven: Josie
Eight: Elias
Nine: The Novel
Ten: Josie
Eleven: Elias
Twelve: the Novel
Thirteen: Josie
Fourteen: Elias
Fifteen: The Novel
Sixteen: The Novel
Seventeen: Josie
Eighteen: Elias
Nineteen: The Novel
Twenty: Josie
Twenty-One: Elias
Twenty-Two: The Novel
Twenty-Three: Josie
Twenty-Four: Elias
Twenty-Five: The Novel
Twenty-Six: Josie
Twenty-Seven: Elias
Twenty-Eight: The Novel
Twenty-Nine: Josie
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
For a moment with you,
I wait an eternity.
ONE
JOSIE
From: Josie De Clare <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 1:38 PM
To: Faith Moretti <[email protected]>
Subject: Neil Is Rubbish – We Hate Neil
Hi Faith,
I did a thing. A big thing. And I’m not sure how to tell you without sounding like the rotten human being who abandoned her best friend for a boy. The rotten human being who reached out the moment she broke up with said boy. But surprise. That’s what I’m doing. Reaching out.
Rashad and I broke up. Well, I broke up with him after he said we needed to cool down for a while. Maybe he broke up with me first. I mean, the whole relationship was a blurry mess.
You said he wasn’t good for me. I should’ve listened. I should’ve gone to the school dance with you, taken you to the airport after graduation. Though you might not believe me, I haven’t forgotten that during our first day at Stonehill Academy, we planned to end our thirteenth year by replacing all the headmaster photos with cut-outs of Leonardo DiCaprio. Epic prank idea. Headmistress Poston would’ve freaked.
I’m sorry for ruining your last year in England.
Guess my brain was scrambled by Rashad’s chocolate-brown eyes and hair that always looked windswept, like he’d been on a motorbike. Ugh! And his gold chain. Laugh all you want, but chains on the right boy . . . (*kisses fingertips*) perfecto.
Rashad drove me to the bus station afterward. As I yanked my luggage from the trunk of his MINI Cooper, he said, “We need to break up, love. Your mood swings put a damper on my creativity.” (Like my dad’s death triggered his lack of artistic talent.) I told him we’d already broken up. Then I poured his cherry-lime energy drink onto his Fenty trainers.
Not my best moment.
Anyway, I decided to email you because (1.) I’m the wordiest person alive, and (2.) I have no idea how international calls or texts work. Part of me thinks I’ll get a bill for two hundred pounds if I try to phone
