A love letter to a dead woman

 Cry Down-river by John Pepper.  This book was passed to me by a blog-friend who has a lovely blog of her own - Lovely Treez Reads - and I am glad to have read it, although the word enjoy is not the one to use for this book.  This is not fiction.  The author, and the woman to whom he writes are real people. Following the death of Ruth, a long term friend and lover when her car is swept away by a flooded river, John Pepper writes to her to explain how he feels about her life, his life, the times their life was together, the times when they were apart.  I have no personal experience of depression, but certainly, Ruth, the woman who died, certainly had periods of severe depression, which affected their relationship.  Also, although she committed to many men in her life, she could not quite commit to John Pepper, and he could never quite say the words "I love you".  If he had, would she still be around?  Its very hard to say, and it is a difficult book to read as you are very near to the writer's soul, and he pulls no punches at all.  But it is a book that should be read, by men and women alike, for whilst I was reading it I kept thinking that "I would never have let him go" or "why is he letting her go again?" every time they drifted apart.  But then I am a quite different person to Ruth, a woman who was much more complicated than me.  Don't be mislead into  thinking this is just chick-lit and letting it go by.  Its nothing like, and deserves to be read.