Recent Reads: Becoming Mrs Lewis; The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis by Patti Callahan

My review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan appealed to me because of C.S. Lewis.  The only things I knew about him before reading this book was that he wrote the Narnia books, which I loved, and that he was Christian, with Aslan actually being God.

Whilst C.S. Lewis (or Jack, as his friends called him) is an important character in this book, the main character is Joy Davidman, a Jewish New Yorker, who first writes to Jack (much easier to type than C.S. Lewis, and so I will steal it for this.) whilst she is married, and has two small sons.  

Joy has a hard life. She and her husband are both writers (he was William Lindsay Gresham), but he wants her to be a 'proper' wife, which during the 1940s onwards means looking after the house, the children, and your husband.  Joy is made to feel selfish in her desire to write.  Her husband is an alcoholic, who helps Joy to find God when he is out boozing yet again, and she has a spiritual epiphany whilst worrying.  Finding God is why Joy writes to Jack, who also found God later in life, and wrote about it.

This book is peppered through with quotes from letters and poems, which adds to hearing their voices.  Whilst the poems are real, I don't know if the letters are, as we are told that Jack destroys all correspondence once he has replied.

Whilst it looks at Joy and Jack's beliefs, I didn't feel like it was trying to convert me, it was just exploring what they believed, and how that impacted their lives.

If you enjoy historical fiction, and looking at famous lives, or getting a glimpse more of the Inklings (the writing group that C.S. Lewis was part of, with J.R.R. Tolkien, and others!), then you'll enjoy this!  Though, do be warned that Joy's time with William is abusive, which some may find upsetting.

Patti Callahan also writes under Patti Callahan Henry, and is a New York Times bestselling author of quite a few books!

Becoming Mrs Lewis was published on 16th May 2019,  and is available to buy on Amazon  and on Waterstones.  I've found a link to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to HarperCollins and Harper Inspire (the publishers) for this book.

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