That Part was True by Deborah McKinlay (2014)

I was staying with an old childhood friend for a few days and loved her house, as I was surrounded by piles of books everywhere. These were not dusty tomes, but mostly hardbacks, mostly non-fiction, from the last few years. As I looked over the books next to my bed, I found a few I had read myself, and this novel grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the Eiffel Tower on the cover, who knows. I just wanted some simple reading before falling asleep. Since I didn't get very far while there, my friend let me take it home. I also have to explain that my friend is a foodie, who caters Latvian events and weddings. She had great stories to tell of weddings she has worked.

The premise is simple, Eve Petworth is from Britain and she writes a letter to a well known American author Jackson Cooper about a passage she liked in his book that described eating a ripe peach. They start corresponding mostly about food. Both enjoy cooking in a deep way that I am sure my friend appreciated more than I ever could, but I enjoyed those descriptions too. Of course their correspondence is a significant stabilizer in their otherwise unmoored lives.

Eve Petworth has recently lost an over bearing mother and is dealing with her highly energetic and self-confident daughter Izzy, who is getting married and misses grandma. Eve has difficulty being in crowds and is slowly working on herself.

Jack Cooper is dealing with the demise of his second marriage, fending off (or not) various women, hanging out with his actor buddy Dex, struggling with writer's block. Somehow through the anonymity of letters (I think that most were hand written instead of emails) Eve and Jack find support in each other, even planning a meeting in Paris.

I like the story technique of telling a story through letters with narrative in between. I am trying to remember others, but the only one that comes to mind at the moment is my friend Michael Rosen's ChaseR: A Novel in E-mails, but I am sure I have read others.