Dead Letter, Betsy Byars
Dead Letter, Betsy Byars
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Dead Letter

Author: Betsy Byars

Narrator: Lauren Davis

Unabridged: 2 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/02/2019


Synopsis

When Herculeah discovers a mysterious letter inside the lining of a secondhand coat, she suspects it's a desperate cry for help. If so, what happened to the person who wrote it? Herculeah thinks she knows the answer. What she doesn't know is that someone is watching her-someone who will do anything to keep her quiet.

About The Author

Betsy Byars began her writing career rather late in life. "In all of my school years, . . . not one single teacher ever said to me, 'Perhaps you should consider becoming a writer,'" Byars recalls. "Anyway, I didn't want to be a writer. Writing seemed boring. You sat in a room all day by yourself and typed. If I was going to be a writer at all, I was going to be a foreign correspondent like Claudette Colbert in Arise My Love. I would wear smashing hats, wisecrack with the guys, and have a byline known round the world. My father wanted me to be a mathematician." So Byars set out to become mathematician, but when she couldn't grasp calculus in college, she turned to English. Even then, writing was not on her immediate horizon.First, she married and started a family. The writing career didn't emerge until she was 28, a mother of two children, and living in a small place she called the barracks apartment, in Urbana, Illinois. She and her husband, Ed, had moved there in 1956 so he could attend graduate school at the University of Illinois. She was bored, had no friends, and so turned to writing to fill her time. Byars started writing articles for The Saturday Evening Post, Look,and other magazines. As her family grew and her children started to read, she began to write books for young people and, fortunately for her readers, discovered that there was more to being a writer than sitting in front of a typewriter."Making up stories and characters is so interesting that I'm never bored. Each book has been a different writing experience. It takes me about a year to write a book, but I spend another year thinking about it, polishing it, and making improvements. I always put something of myself intomy books -- something that happened to me. Once a wanderer came by my house and showed me how to brush my teeth with a cherry twig; that went in The House of Wingscopyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Camryn

This book was good. If your up for suspense and mystery then you would like this book. Herculeah finds a note in her new coat lining. She reads the note and calls the store she got it from and when she got to the store there was a phone number on the back. She called the phone number and found the h......more

Вече ви запознахме с Еркюлея Джоунс, младото момиче-детектив от книгите на Бетси Байърс. Благодарение на издателство „Монт” поредицата с нейните мистерии продължава и Еркюлея демонстрира завидни умения в разнищването на криминални случаи, които я превръщат в първа конкурентка на нейната колежка Нанс......more

Goodreads review by Heather

Herculeah Jones finds a mysterious note in the lining of an electric blue coat. Along with help from her sidekick Meat, Herculeah uses her intuition to solve the mystery. There was a lot of forced and stilted dialog that was hard to read. The story moved fairly fast, but was never very intriguing.......more

Goodreads review by Max

The book Dead Letter by Betsy Byars is a mystery-thriller book for young adults. The story starts when the main protagonist, a girl named Herculeah Jones, mysteriously comes across an attractive coat at a thrift shop. She is drawn to it in an awkward way, and buys it. She explains her peculiar exper......more