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Katarina Bivald - The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

1. Pen Pal

Duration: 14 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 Extra

Available for 9 months

Katarina Bivald's warm, funny and moving story of love and friendship was first published in Swedish.

The heroine Sara, is in her late 20s, when she leaves her native Sweden to visit her much older pen pal Amy in a remote part of Iowa, a town aptly called Broken Wheel. But, when she arrives, all is not as she had foreseen.

Knowing nobody there, the townspeople who are initially wary of her, take her into their hearts. The joint passion between Sara and Amy was books, and she soon decides that Broken Wheel needs a bookstore. With some help from the locals, she sets one up and it proves quite a hit.

But how long can she stay there on a tourist visa? And what if she were to be persuaded to fall in love with one of the residents, making it possible to marry and stay on indefinitely? And which of the rather curious collection of suitors would be the most likely?

Unexpectedly, she finds herself falling in love - not just with one of the men in question, but with the whole town itself.

Translated by Alice Menzies.

Dramatised in five parts by Jeremy Raison

Sara ...... Anna Koval
Tom ...... Richard Goulding
Caroline ...... Lorelei King
Jen ...... Laurel Lefkow
Amy ...... Adjoa Andoh
George ...... William Hope
Andy ...... Martin T Sherman
Grace ...... Kate Harper

Director: Cherry Cookson

A Wireless Theatre production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2019. Show less

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