All her life, Amy Evans has struggled against that unkind gift of fate - ugliness. A squat nose stubbed like a plasticine afterthought on her face, a chin too long and eyes straining to meet each other, form a sad picture that dooms Amy to a life of solitude and lovelessness. Now in her fifties, Amy lives alone with her crippled brother, both prisoners of the hopes and aspirations of their youth. Then Amy makes a final bid for happiness, a last ditch attempt to meet someone she can love, someone who might love her. Suddenly her life takes on dizzying new dimensions as she explores untrodden paths of sexual awareness in an all-or-nothing gamble for dangerous and delicious success.

Bernice Rubens was born and raised in Splott, Cardiff. The daughter of a Lithuanian Jew who was conned into thinking he was emigrating for America. He was in Cardiff for a couple of weeks before someone pointed out to him he wasn’t in New York. Rubens attended Roath Primary School, Cardiff High School and Cardiff University. A Booker Prize winner and the author of some 25 novels, Rubens based I sent a Letter to My Love on memories of family holidays to Porthcawl. The novel was made into a film in 1981 Chere inconnue, set in Brittany and starring Simone Signoret.