Virginia Evans is finally having her moment.
The author of one of the publishing world’s breakout hits of 2025 nearly gave up on writing. It took two decades of dedication, but Evans finally has a New York Times bestseller and a book Bel Canto author Ann Patchett calls a unicorn.
Related: Oprah's Recent Book Club Pick Lands Goodreads Choice Awards Nomination: 'Spellbound Until the Last Word'
Virginia Evans' Long Road to Success
View this post on InstagramThe Correspondent is Evans’ debut novel. The sleeper book of 2025, The Correspondent took five months to land on the prestigious New York Times Bestseller List. The book boasts a foreword by Patchett, has received rave reviews from celebrated authors like Florence Knapp, and finds itself No. 2 on the 2025 Amazon Best Books of the Year list. Evans’ novel was also recognized by book retailer Barnes & Noble, which features The Correspondent on its Best Fiction of 2025 list.
In addition, The Correspondent is a nominee for Best Debut Novel in the Goodreads Choice Awards. Other buzzy books of 2025 that are also Goodreads Choice Awards nominees include Reese Witherspoon’s “favorite book of the year” Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall and Oprah Winfrey’s book club pick The Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar.
Over the past two decades, Virginia Evans has written many books but couldn’t find a path to publishing. The author moved her family to Dublin in 2019, where she studied for her master’s at Trinity College. When Evans returned to the U.S., she tells the Wall Street Journal, she hit rock bottom. That’s when she started working on what would become The Correspondent, the story of a woman who tracks her life in letters.
She tells the WSJ, “My father-in-law was sick, COVID was underway and we were in a bad place,” Evans told WSJ. “I started The Correspondent as an exercise, never planning to show it to anyone.”
Writing every day, Evans used the book as a way to process “the grief and disappointment I was dealing with.” She had no idea it would go on to become a New York Times bestseller.
Despite not getting picked up by any of the major book clubs, The Correspondent became the word-of-mouth book of the year. Amazon editor Abby Abell writes of the book, “The Correspondent is a novel you read and then immediately buy for one, or five, of your friends. Told over the course of many years via correspondences between retired lawyer Sybil Van Antwerp and the various people she writes to, it's a story about the bonds we form and heal through words. This book is a gem, and a much-needed reminder of the beauty of humanity.”
Related: Reese Witherspoon's 'Favorite Book This Year' Scores Goodreads Choice Awards Nomination: 'That Ending!'
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