Book Title: THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN LETTERS
Character Name: Skye MacKinnon
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
I grew up in London, on the west side of the city, close enough to the river that I could see sun glinting off the water from my bedroom window. In the house with me were Mum and Dad, Cassandra and Cosmo MacKinnon. Now that’s a surname that deserves to be rolled over the tongue. It comes from my dad’s side. He was Scottish, born and raised on the Isle of Skye, which is where I get my name from. My mother is a prominent lawyer with a temperament to match. She approaches arguments in the same way a sharp pair of scissors would a swathe of silk. My dad worked as a potter, creating somethings from nothing more than soil, water and stubborn imagination. He was the one at home with me most of the time. I asked him once if he could arrange for me to have a brother or sister, and he cupped my cheek and said, “Now, why would I make another you when I got it so right the first time?” Nobody had a bigger heart, everyone said it, though it was his heart that failed him in the end.
What is your greatest talent?
They say patience is a virtue, don’t they? It’s also a pre-requisite to becoming a teacher of young children, which is what I am, or was, or still am. I’ll let you decide on that one. Mum and Dad bickered a lot, so I guess the skill of mediation was bred into me. In a room where everyone’s shouting, someone has to be the quiet one, the sponge that absorbs the noise. Confrontation must be avoided at all costs. As I will soon learn, though, a talent such as this one comes with its own set of problems.
Significant other?
It’s complicated
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Trust. Dad used to say it was a greater compliment than love; harder to earn and easier to lose. Break a bond of trust and the whole thing crumbles. Andreas would probably explain it as being like a support beam in a building, which is a bit basic as metaphors go, but its direct, effective, pleasing – much like the man himself.
Where do you live?
Thanks to a lottery, my address is now a crumbling hillside cottage on the small Greek island of Folegandros. There are only around 750 permanent residents living here, while London has nine million. As you can imagine, it’s taking a bit of time to get used to the slower pace of life, though I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. If you think about it, we’re all a bit Greek. So much of what has shaped our lives, our religions, our laws, arts and literature can be traced back to its shores. I can’t think of a more appropriate place for a person to start over.
Do you have any enemies?
Only one…
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
What I feel is connected. Finding the bundle of letters is what did it. Once that door to the past had opened, there was no choice but to walk through it, reach out and gather what was left; examine it, cherish it. History can feel repellent at times, given its brutality, but there is no better lesson than what has gone before.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
Tigri the village cat adopted me soon after I arrived – and yes, it was that way around. Nobody in history has ever convinced a cat to do something it didn’t want to, so I take Tigri’s targeted affection as a huge compliment. There is also a dog living up on the hillside and goats often wander through the backyard. I hear the soft clanking of their bells and always feel transported by the sound.
What do you do for a living?
I teach. It was all I ever wanted to do. There are photos of me aged five or six, stuffed animals and dolls arranged in a semi-circle around me, hand-drawn workbooks for each. It was while I was training that I met my now-best friend, Sal. Her specialism was politics, while mine was history – a combination that’s made for some lively debates over the years.
Greatest disappointment?
This is a difficult question to answer. Disappointment sits in that gap between expectation and reality. Sometimes what we hope for is not what we end up with, but the trick is not to resent it. If the past few months has taught me anything, it’s that hope should carry no blame.
Greatest source of joy?
My neighbor, Joy! Originally from Australia, she entered the same lottery I did and won the house across the hillside from mine. Joy cracks jokes – and bottles of beer open – at every opportunity. She is a rainbow in human form.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Real Greeks like to eat – that was the first lesson I learned after arriving on the island. Alas, my cookery skills are sadly lacking, though it’s been fun trying to improve and the results are undoubtedly entertaining for anyone who happens to witness me at the stove. I’m determined to master the classic Folegandros dish of matsata – a kind of flat pasta with a fresh tomato sauce – but every attempt so far has ended up a congealed mess in the bottom of the pan.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
Putting my trust the wrong person.
What keeps you awake at night?
The thought of what I had to do to get here.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
The past catching up with me.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
What I need most is to remain hidden, but I get the sense someone has flipped over the hourglass on that wish.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Remember how I told you earlier that I hate confrontation? That I’d rather run away than stay and fight? My life is in the mess it’s in because I chose to abandon the old version of it, and in doing so, I left a lot of loose threads trailing in the wind. Sooner or later, they’re going to trip me up. It’s only a matter of time…
THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN LETTERS by Izzy Broom
Narrator: Daphne Kouma
A beautiful and escapist novel full of heart, for fans of Elin Hilderbrand and readers who love book club fiction.
For sale: Greek cottage. One euro.
Skye MacKinnon is desperate for an escape. When she wins a lottery to buy a run-down cottage on a Greek island for only one euro, Skye jumps at the chance to get out of England and start over. As she unlocks the tattered blue door of her whitewashed new cottage, the sun-kissed sea glinting in the bay outside her windows, Skye immediately feels like she’s found her true home.
Skye and the other lottery winners—the first residents in these houses since the 1940s—form a tight-knit group, finding in one another the strong relationships they’d been missing in their own lives. When Skye and local contractor Andreas find a set of mysterious letters, they begin to unravel the history of the prior residents, and the truth about life on Folegandros during World War II.
Sweeping, escapist, and full of heart, The House of Hidden Letters reminds us of the importance of human connection. Izzy Broom has written a poignant and hopeful novel for those who have found love and family in unexpected places.
Women’s Fiction Family Life [ Berkley, On Sale: March 17, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9798217190386 / eISBN: 9798217190409 ]
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About Izzy Broom
Izzy Broom is the author of twelve romances and has been published in fourteen markets. In 2015, she won The Great British Write Off with her short story, The Wedding Speech, which was later adapted into a prize-winning short film. Her fifth novel, One Thousand Stars and You, was awarded Contemporary Romance Novel of the Year at the 2019 RNAs. Formerly a Book Reviews Editor at Heat magazine and Woman & Home, Isabelle still works regularly for Heat, Closer, Bella, Grazia, and Crime Monthly. She lives in Suffolk.
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