Forever Friday by Timothy Lewis

It starts when a small estate salesman was going through a stack of discarded photo albums and found the postcards. Adam Colby, himself a man who could not keep the “forever” commitment of his marriage for longer than twelve years, was fascinated by hundreds of colorful postcards revealing six decades of married passion.

As he delivered some of the items willed to distant relatives in the area, Adam asked about Gabe and Pearl Alexander. Having read the postcards he felt a strange investment in their lives and wanted to understand their relationship. His questions began to be answered when he met Yvette. She was the daughter of the Alexander's long time housekeeper and had looked after Pearl the final year of her life.

The novel switches to the past as we see Gabe and “Huck” (Pearl's nickname) meet. The novel then swings to the present as Adam and Yvette meet and Adam learns a little of the Alexander's history. Then back, as the sixty year marriage of love is revealed, periodically coming back to the present with Adam and Yvette.

This is a tender love story presented in a well crafted novel. Lewis says the novel is loosely based on the lives of his great-aunt and uncle. At their estate sale, he had discovered the postcards, literally pulling them out of the trash. His great-aunt had received a postcard with an original love poem on it every Friday for sixty years. He knew he had a love story but had no conflict, no intriguing plot. About five years later it came to him and he penned this novel.

Lewis has done a fine job. There is romance, humor, a tender love story, forgiveness and restoration, and some suspense thrown in too. Conservative readers like I am might be put off by the drinking, dancing, and going to horse racing. Though their Christian faith was usually there (often in the form of belief in an angel), I would have liked to see it as a more central aspect of the success of their marriage.

You can see a trailer for the novel here.
You can sample the novel by reading chapter one here.
See more information at the publisher's product page.

Timothy Lewis is an author and playwright. He has authored more than twenty plays and musicals. He teaches a beginning novel writing class at Texas A&M University and co-directs a summer writing academy. He and his wife live near Amarillo, Texas.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for the purpose of this review.