1821: Elias Roch has ghastly luck with women. He met Josephine De Clare once and penned dozens of letters hoping to find her again.

2021: Josie De Clare has questionable taste in boyfriends. The last one nearly ruined her friendship with her best friend.

Now, in the wake of her father's death, Josie finds Elias's letters. Suddenly she's falling in love with a guy who lived two hundred years ago. And star-crossed doesn't even begin to cover it . . .

"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." --Nadine Brandes, author of Romanov

"Caroline George infuses an epistolary love story with a romance and charm that crosses centuries. Dearest Josephine is a delight." --Emily Bain Murphy, author of The Disappearances

"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