Tag Archives: World War Two

#BookReview ‘The Secret Shore’ by @liz_fenwick #WW2 #romance

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It was only when I finished reading The Secret Shore by Liz Fenwick that I read the Author’s Note at the back and discovered it is based on real people and events in the Second World War from 1942-1945. What a cracking wartime romance this is, shedding light on the rarely mentioned mapmakers who enabled the military to plan and execute operations. Liz FenwickMerry, Dr Meredith Tremayne, was a geography lecturer at Oxford University before becoming a mapmaker in the War Office in London. In the first chapter there is a rather nice ‘meet cute’ with an American officer, involving a dropped copy of Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers. This romantic suspense story parallels Merry’s experiences as a woman in a man’s world when even the course of wartime flirtation doesn’t run smoothly.
When Elise, Merry’s widowed French mother goes missing, she returns home to Cornwall, to Kestle, the family home on the Helford estuary. Her boss Commander Fleming has transferred her temporarily to a small seaborne unit operating out of a house called Ridifarne, on the opposite side of the Helford river to Kestle. She will train with them to learn what they require from maps when in enemy territory, experience she hopes to use when making maps later in the war. Still confident her artist mother has simply gone on an impromptu painting trip, Merry is disturbed to hear local gossip that Elise is a spy. Maps, as always for Merry, provide clues, answers and solace. ‘When things didn’t add up, I turned to maps. From the age of eight, I’d been mapping my life day by day since my father first taught me how to draw one.’ Like Sayers’ heroine Harriet Vane, Merry has a mystery to solve.
As a member of a university rowing crew, Merry fits easily into the male banter of the flotilla crew at Ridifarne who recover quickly from their mistaken expectation that Dr Tremayne would be male. Amongst the officers is an American, Jake Russell, the man Merry met over the dropped copy of Gaudy Night. Once they understand Merry’s knowledge of Helford, competence in a boat, fluency in French, Breton and reading maps, she is accepted. Flirtation with Jake is a light relief from the horror of war and the plight of her mother.
Merry is a strong woman who knows what she wants from life, even if at the beginning of the novel she doesn’t truly understand what she will be giving up. When that becomes apparent to her, the war has darkened and she has seen danger and death. She’s a great character – both Merry and Jake are fictional – her no-nonsense exterior drives the plot from training to active duty, from Cornwall to London and back again. Although surrounded by secrecy it becomes clear to Merry that the crew is sailing to Brittany with supplies for the Resistance, returning with men. This new knowledge makes her flirtation with Jake seem irresponsible in wartime so, in what seems quite a ‘male’ decision, she decides to live in the day, have fun and not worry about the future. But all the time a shadow is cast by the mysterious disappearance of her mother.
The cast of characters is rather long and at times I would have appreciated a list of names, ditto a map of the Helford River. I enjoyed the description of Cornwall, its nature, people and traditions, and the Sayers references. I expect to spot more of these on a second reading.
Atmospheric, full of tension and period detail, I really enjoyed The Secret Shore. It’s the first book I’ve read by this author, and will now explore the others.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘Life after Life’ by Kate Atkinson
‘One Moonlit Night’ by Rachel Hore
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SECRET SHORE by @liz_fenwick https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7ek via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Stef Penney

#BookReview ‘My Brother Michael’ by Mary Stewart #mystery #WW2

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‘Nothing ever happens to me,’ writes Camilla Haven on a postcard at the beginning of My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart. Longing for excitement on her solitary holiday in Greece, the inevitable happens. A case of mistaken identity takes Camilla to Delphi where statues of gods are found around every corner and ghostly lights move at night on the hills of Mount Parnassus. Mary StewartStewart has written a page-turning tale of death, art, handsome Greek gods [alive and stone], caves and smuggling. At the root of it all is what happened on these hills during the Second World War when Greek partisans were fighting the Nazis, and each other. Published in 1959, the story is set fourteen years after the war ended. This is pre-tourism Greece with goatherds on the slopes and donkeys following hillside tracks that have been used for thousands of years at a time, but when war’s mark is still evident daily. This is not a political post-war novel about a trouble, divided country, instead Stewart focuses on the people, their motivations and how history, ancient and recent, should never be forgotten.
Camilla is a cautious character in the first few chapters but as she, and we the readers, are drawn into adventure and mystery, her sense of right and wrong leads her onward towards risk and violence.
What a magical tale of mystery this is by a master storyteller. I read this first in the Seventies and this time around was just as gripped, reading into the night.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Click the title to read my reviews of other Mary Stewart novels:-
THE GABRIEL HOUNDS
THE IVY TREE
THIS ROUGH MAGIC
THORNYHOLD
TOUCH NOT THE CAT

If you like this, try these:-
‘THE COLLABORATOR’S DAUGHTER’ BY EVA GLYN
‘THOSE WHO ARE LOVED’ BY VICTORIA HISLOP
‘THE CAMOMILE LAWN’ BY MARY WESLEY

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MY BROTHER MICHAEL by Mary Stewart https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-789 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Girl Who Escaped’ by @Angela_Petch #WW2

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World War Two drama The Girl Who Escaped by Angela Petch is a heartbreaking slow-burner that had me reading late at night to finish it. Angela PetchThe story about four friends in the small Italian town of Urbino begins with a Prologue set in 1988. Enrico, waiting for a reunion with his childhood friends, looks at a photograph of them taken fifty years earlier, before the war, on a mountain hike. Young. Carefree. Unsuspecting.
In 1940 in Urbino, 20-year-old medical student Devora Lassa is struggling to accept how her movements, as a Jew, are now limited by law. She is unable to study, is seen as different. Sabrina Merli, who has a long-standing crush on Conte Enrico di Villanova, is jealous at a party when Enrico greets Devora with a kiss on both cheeks. Luigi Michelozzi, a civil servant, watches, quiet and thoughtful.
After the party, Devora’s world is thrown into chaos when her father explains the hard truth. Tomorrow, Italy will enter the war on the side of Germany and the racial laws applying to Jewish people will again be changed. Her parents, who were born in Germany but are Italian citizens, must leave in the morning for an internment camp near Arezzo. Their Jewish neighbours, not Italian citizens, are being deported. As Devora and her two younger twin brothers were born in Italy they are able to stay in the family home in Urbino but now Devora, helped by their maid Anna Maria, must become parents to the boys.
This the story of Devora, whose life within a matter of hours changes out of all recognition. She is the girl who escapes a multitude of times, but in wartime Italy it is difficult to know where is safe, who is trustworthy, strangers who help, friends who change sides, neighbours who spy, Italians who are fascists or partigianos (resistance fighters), German soldiers who are fascists and torturers or world-weary soldiers missing their own families. Every decision Devora makes affects not just herself but those closest to her. When Luigi warns her to leave Urbino, the three siblings are reunited with their parents at Villa Oliveto, the internment camp turned into a Jewish community by its inmates, with gardening, theatre, medical treatment. But is anywhere safe?
Devora runs and runs again, and comes to hate herself for not turning and fighting. When she joins the resistenza, she needs every ounce of bravery, ingenuity and intelligence to survive. But in Urbino, no-one can predict who will betray you, who wants to help, who is setting a trap. She is a fantastic heroine, we live with her day-by-day as she begins to understand what is happening to her country, as she grows from indignant student to strong fighter. She must learn to move in the shadows, how to act a role, when to keep quiet and when step forwards. Her character development is compelling. Luigi is fascinating too, his job registering births and deaths allows him to falsify records to protect people. We see a little of Enrico, an arrogant, flashy personality who I had no time for, and even less of Sabrina. I needed to know more about Sabrina’s behaviour throughout the war, to understand her experiences. She blows with the wind, supporting whoever she thinks will be of advantage to her, her loyalty is an enigma. Some people fight to survive, others stay quiet and collaborate.
The Girl Who Escaped portrays the reality of wartime Italy, focussing on one town and the four friends. At times its not an easy read, the plight of ordinary people persecuted for no other reason than their religion is not new but Petch maintains the suspense to the end so we don’t know who betrays who.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here are my reviews of other novels also by Angela Petch:-
THE POSTCARD FROM ITALY
THE TUSCAN SECRET

If you like this, try:-
‘Day’ by AL Kennedy
‘The Garden of Angels’ by David Hewson
‘The Bird in the Bamboo Cage’ by Hazel Gaynor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED by @Angela_Petch https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-74A via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Ray Bradbury

#BookReview ‘The Collaborator’s Daughter’ by Eva Glyn @JaneCable #WW2 #Croatia

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Modern-day grief and the turmoil of a wartime past are entangled for Fran in The Collaborator’s Daughter by Eva Glyn. Looking for a new start after the death of her beloved adoptive father, Fran leaves wintery England for the warmer streets of Dubrovnik. Feeling alone, vulnerable and anxious, Fran searches for the strength to look for answers. Eva GlynBrought from Yugoslavia to England as a baby at the end of the Second World War, Fran was raised by her mother to believe her father was a war hero. But Fran has recently discovered the name of Branko Milisic on a list of Nazi collaborators executed by partisan fighters in 1944. Unable to rationalise her gentle, loving mother Dragica as having loved a Nazi, Fran visits Croatia for the first time, taking small steps in discovering the history of the city where she was born. Her life is drifting. Having nursed her mother then father in their last years, raised her son and cared for grandchildren, Fran now realises she needs time for herself. But after a life of caring, being selfish is not as easy as it sounds. In her sixties, she lacks confidence and feels old, unattractive and shy.
Fran’s rebirth as an independent woman unfolds slowly, sometimes tortuously, as she treads the warm streets of Dubrovnik, shyly meeting the locals, learning their language, baking local delicacies and plucking up the courage to ask questions about her mysterious father. Fran is an introspective character and she spends a lot of time re-examining her motives, asking what-if, worrying about what she will find, summoning courage to take the next step, to ask the next question. As the grief at the recent loss of her father begins to lessen, she becomes bolder, finding strength with the new friends she has made in the beautiful city. Glyn’s descriptions of Dubrovnik are pictorial, so much so that the city almost becomes a character with a personality.
This is a compassionate telling of an emotional story about grief, about the fear of the past and ultimately about forgiveness. The truth about Branko and Dragica’s life during the Second World War seems deeply hidden, impossible to find, records lost, witnesses dead. As Fran struggles with the idea that her father was a traitor, perhaps a murderer, she is introduced to a local man who fought in the more recent Balkan War. Jadran knows what war is really like, the fear, the shame, the horror, the impossible choices, the loyalties and betrayals. Glyn cleverly juxtaposes the different wartime experiences as Fran tries to forgive a father who possibly did terrible things.
At times Fran is overcome with the enormity of what she is attempting. But with the help of her new Croatian friends, and bolstered by rallying Skype sessions with best friend Parisa back home in England, she investigates the truth, one small step at a time.
An original storyline in a country whose wartime story is read little in fiction.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my review of THE MISSING PIECES OF US, also by Eva Glyn.

Eva Glyn is the pen name of author Jane Cable, here are my reviews of some of Jane’s other novels:-
ANOTHER YOU
ENDLESS SKIES
THE CHEESEMAKER’S HOUSE

If you this, try:-
‘The Last Hours in Paris’ by Ruth Druart
‘The Book of Lies’ by Mary Horlock
‘The Camomile Lawn’ by Mary Wesley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE COLLABORATOR’S DAUGHTER by Eva Glyn @JaneCable https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6Zl via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Joanna Trollope

#BookReview ‘The Hidden Palace’ by @DinahJefferies #WW2 #Malta

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The Hidden Palace by Dinah Jefferies, second in the ‘Daughters of War’ trilogy, wasn’t quite what I expected. I felt disconnected from the first book which means it’s perfectly possible to be read as a standalone novel. Dinah JefferiesFlorence Baudin, one of the three Baudin sisters featured in Daughters of War, first in the series, has fled France leaving her sisters behind. It is 1944 and she is in England at the isolated Devon cottage of Jack, the English SOE agent who led her through France and Spain to safety. Florence is finally reunited with her mother Claudette who had stayed in England for the war. As sharp and feisty as ever, Claudette doesn’t make her daughter feel welcome but has a surprising request. Will Florence find her younger sister Rosalie who ran away from the family home in Paris in 1925? Florence, desperate to be closer to her mother, agrees despite the absence of clues, despite it being wartime.
This is a dual timeline story. 1944 with Florence, and 1925 with Rosalie Delacroix who flees Paris and goes to Malta where she finds work as a dancer. Rosalie is a more dynamic character than Florence, she makes things happen. Rosalie swaps career from dancer to journalist, publishing editor to campaigner, not all of which felt natural for her character. This is a novel of two separate stories – of aunt and niece, two decades apart – linked by genes but not impacting on each other.
Basically this tells of the search for a missing person. From the book blurb I anticipated a story set during the WW2 siege of Malta but it was late coming; at 70% through the novel Rosalie was still in 1930s. When war does come, I wanted to know more about Malta at this time. It was such a dramatic period in history and is seldom written about in fiction. Rosalie’s work as a plotter in the underground control centre during the defence of Malta is good, but slim pickings. Jefferies contrasts well the beauty of Malta with a darker underlying menace, prostitution, trafficking of women. This is an island invaded and settled by foreigners over many centuries with the looming threat of another world war. The hidden palace of the book’s title is a mesmerising maze of a building, like something out of an exotic Mary Stewart suspense novel. Is it a sanctuary or a prison. It’s a mysterious setting I was hoping would be used as a sanctuary during the war or perhaps a secret military headquarters.
The theme of unity and divisions between sisters shows how misunderstandings, if not addressed, can become impenetrable division. The deepest of bad feelings are better aired and faced, than deeply buried. Running away does not leave the old trouble behind, but also causes new problems.
I like to be immersed in characters and prefer long sections so I become emotionally involved. This story jumps around a lot between timelines which can be disorientating. The use of a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter is meant to add tension to keep the reader reading, but there needs to be a worthy pay-off each time. When chunks of years were skipped in Rosalie’s story, I wanted to know what was missing. It was like looking at a family photo album with pages torn out.
So, a bit of a curate’s egg. It didn’t advance the story of the three Baudin sisters, as I was expecting. But Rosalie’s story in Malta kept my attention.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to read my review of DAUGHTERS OF WAR, first in this trilogy.

And here are my reviews of some of Dinah Jefferies’ other novels:-
THE TEA PLANTER’S WIFE
THE SAPPHIRE WIDOW
THE TUSCAN CONTESSA

If you like this, try:-
‘The Gabriel Hounds’ by Mary Stewart
‘The Postcard from Italy’ by Angela Petch
‘The Last Hours in Paris’ by Ruth Druart

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE HIDDEN PALACE by @DinahJefferies #bookreview https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-63n via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-SD Sykes

#BookReview ‘The Partisan’ by Patrick Worrall #thriller #ColdWar #spy

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The key protagonist in The Partisan by Patrick Worrall is a female Lithuanian resistance fighter who becomes a Cold War assassin. How nice to read a thriller set in the Baltic States, a fresh take on war and how to survive it. At the heart of the story is Greta, the partisan. I admired her, and feared her. Patrick WorrallAn ambitious timeline ranges from the Spanish Civil War to the Sixties Cold War as Greta turns from wartime fighting, one of the Three Sisters, to post-war vengeance tracking down the war criminals on her list and eliminating them. Greta’s story intersects in 1963 with Yulia and Michael, Soviet and English teenage chess champions respectively, and a Soviet plot to win the Cold War. The 1963 chess sub-plot got in the way. Greta is the fascinating character, I wanted to read about her. Her story is thrilling enough.
I couldn’t help but wonder if a more limited reach would help the story’s rhythm. The story jumps around a bit. In the first half I would prefer spending longer with each character to understand them, before the pace picks up as tension rises and point of view gets snappier. I wanted to read about Greta’s story in one long narrative thread instead of a timeline jumping between 1940s and 1963. I particularly enjoyed Greta’s interviews with journalist Indrė in 2004 and was unable to get beyond the jumping around when I wanted to settle in with one character. The character list is long with many similar names to remember – who is on which side, who is double-crossing who – and this took me out of the story.
I’m always partial to a good thriller and like to find debut authors, so I’ll be watching out for the next book from Patrick Worrall. It’s different, try it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you like this, try:-
‘The Diamond Eye’ by Kate Quinn
‘A Hero in France’ by Alan Furst
‘V2’ by Robert Harris

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE PARTISAN by Patrick Worrall #bookreview https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-5T8 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Last Hours in Paris’ by Ruth Druart #WW2

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The Last Hours in Paris by Ruth Druart is a different kind of Second World War romance. At times it is a tough read, the hatred is visceral and uncompromising. It feels real. Ruth DruartThis is the story of three people in the last days of occupied Paris and the years following when repercussions continued and the war, though never spoken of, remained tangled in the roots of daily life. Those who fought the Germans, those who stayed behind and lived under German dictatorship. In peacetime everyone must live alongside each other again. The different memories, experiences, losses, are difficult to assimilate.
In Paris 1944 Élise Chevalier a bank clerk by day, secretly helps to smuggle Jewish children from the city. ‘Paris was no longer Paris. It was an occupied city, and even the buildings seemed to be holding their breath, waiting.’ No longer her familiar city, Paris is sinister, threatening, frightening. One day in her favourite bookshop Élise is threatened by two French policemen and is defended by another customer, a German soldier. And so begins the story of Élise and Sébastian Kleinhaus and the terrifying, impossible time in which they live.
In 1963 in rural Brittany, eighteen-year old Joséphine Chevalier uncovers a story about her mother that she could never have imagined. She fears it is impossible to truly know someone. ‘From now on, she’ll always be wondering what part of themselves people are hiding.’
A slow burn to start, Druart takes her time, allowing us to feel connected to the characters as she gradually raises the emotional temperature. The peripheral characters are well drawn, particularly Élise’s younger sister Isabelle, bookshop owner Monsieur le Bolzec and Breton farmer Soizic. Each brings their own experience, judgement and dignity to what is an impossible, unbearable situation for everyone. The definition of family and home, love, protection and separation. ‘Maybe home wasn’t a place at all, but the people you wanted to be with.’
Whatever you may think of what happened in Paris at this time, Druart tells this sensitive story of young people, inexperienced, naive and hopeful, living in a time of such violence and betrayal, of secrets, survival, moralising and vengeance. After surviving the hardships, violence and deprivations of war, how can they adapt to find a new life of possibilities. How can they forgive the secrets and betrayals and move on.
A strongly emotional interpretation of life in occupied Paris that is hardly an obvious setting for a story about love. But this is a love more than romance. It is a love of family, responsibility, truth, sacrifice, forgiveness, of letting go of past hurts and wrongs and looking to the future.
Highly recommended.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to read my review of WHILE PARIS SLEPT, another World War Two story by Ruth Druart.

If you like this, try:-
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst
‘The Book of Lies’ by Mark Horlock
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE LAST HOURS IN PARIS by Ruth Druart #bookreview https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-5T2 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Diamond Eye’ by @KateQuinnAuthor #WW2

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What a wonderful book is The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn. The fictionalised story of a real Soviet female sniper fighting in what is now Ukraine in the early years of the Second World War, this is a novel I didn’t want to put down. Kate QuinnThe life of Kiev resident Mila Pavlichenko, young mother and history student, changes when the Nazis invade. Already an accomplished shot with a rifle, she leaves her young son Slavka with her mother and goes off to war. In the 18 months of her time on the frontline as a sniper, the real Mila scored 309 official ‘kills’. She is injured fighting in Sevastapol and, once recovered, is ordered to join a diplomatic mission to the USA to persuade the Americans to join the European war. The action in America is probably the most fictionalised part of The Diamond Eye which is based in part on Mila’s memoir. Quinn states in her Author’s Note that parts of the memoir are clearly Mila’s own voice, other entries seem like Soviet propaganda.
This is not just a war story with guns and death and trenches. Quinn tells the story of a young woman, torn from all that is familiar, who finds strength inside herself and with her comrade snipers, to do what must be done. Some of her fellow soldiers have brief times at her side; others, the most skilled snipers, survive. She discovers how difficult it is, when you know you may die tomorrow, to open yourself up to friendship, or love. She acquires a nickname, ‘Lady Death,’ and spurns the frequent attentions of her senior officers. Her girlfriends also volunteer, her estranged husband turns up as a combat surgeon, but there are few light moments in her life. Her primary motivation is to defend her homeland, that is the only thing keeping her away from home. Between missions she gathers leaves and sends them to Slavka, she carries her dissertation with her and takes it from her backpack to read to remember the life she once had. Quinn alternates the dark story of Mila’s fighting, first at Odesa and then at Sevastapol, with her later trip to Washington in 1942 plus excerpts from the diary of the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who Mila met on that trip.
This is a shocking story and a compelling one. The sections about sniper technique and tactics are not for the faint-hearted but the current war in Ukraine adds a reality check and there are light-hearted moments in Washington as Mila meets the American press, not alerting her hosts to the fact that she can speak English. Also lightly woven through the fighting sections are snippets of Russian folklore, a reminder that Mila’s country has roots and traditions much older than the Soviet Union.
Quinn creates a heroine we care for. Brave and determined with a sharp edge of sarcasm, this is Mila’s story as imagined by the author. The two parts of the story – the fighting, the subsequent trip to America – are key to the growth of an unusual and exceptional young woman. So what if the final section lurches into ‘thriller’ territory, it made the pages turn even faster.
Highly recommended.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

And here’s my review of THE ROSE CODE, another WW2 thriller by Kate Quinn.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden [#1 Winternight trilogy]
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst
‘Corpus’ by Rory Clements [#1 Tom Wilde series]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
THE DIAMOND EYE by @KateQuinnAuthor #bookreview https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5QW via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Postcard from Italy’ by @Angela_Petch #WW2

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I’ve never been to Puglia in Italy, the south-eastern coast down to the heel, except in the pages of The Postcard from Italy by Angela Petch. Vividly she brings to life the coastline, the stone-built trulli houses, the caves. It is a magical setting. Stretching backwards from today to the closing months of the Second World War, this is an enthralling family story of love and separation.  Recognising love when it’s there, but also understanding when it’s absent. Angela PetchIn 1945, Puglia, a young man awakes, injured, disorientated. He doesn’t know who he is or how he came to be in a trullo, a rural stone house, cared for by strangers. The teenage boy Anto explains how his grandfather Domenico saw him fall from a warplane. Called ‘Roberto’ by his rescuers, his memory stubbornly refuses to return. He can speak English and Italian but knows nothing about fishing or farming. As he helps them in their daily routines, gathering food, catching fish, tending vegetables, repairing the trullo, his nights are full of confusing dreams.
In present day Hastings, England, Susannah mourns the recent death of her father Frank and the descent of her grandmother, Elsie, into the clouds of dementia. Clearing Elsie’s house, Susannah finds a yellowing postcard of a beautiful farmhouse in Puglia and a message of love. Realising this is the same farmhouse in a painting by her father but unaware of family links with Italy, she can’t reconcile this message of love with her brittle, acidic grandmother who always preferred Susannah’s blonde-haired younger sister Sybil. So, while a friend looks after her antique bric-a-brac shop at home, Susannah takes a holiday in Puglia. Determined to find the house in her father’s painting, she learns to heal herself, to speak a little Italian and in so doing falls for two handsome men.
Petch uses conventional wartime story themes – amnesia, separation of loved ones, the vulnerability of loneliness and grief, and the fear of those who exploit war for gain – and adds the twists and turns of flirting and love. Petch has written four novels set in Tuscany, so Puglia is a new setting for her but her knowledge of Italy shines on every page. Susannah’s holiday is extended as she turns detective but the clues, when she finds them, bring more questions rather than answers.
Susannah is the spine of the story but my favourite character was Anto, so complex, so brave, so intriguing. This is a wonderful book to sink into, a perfect holiday or weekend read.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Here’s my review of THE TUSCAN SECRET, also by Angela Petch.

If you like this, try:-
‘Another You’ by Jane Cable
‘The War Child’ by Renita d’Silva
‘The Tuscan Contessa’ by Dinah Jefferies

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE POSTCARD FROM ITALY by @Angela_Petch https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5Qk via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Dear Mrs Bird’ by AJ Pearce #WW2 #romance

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Sometimes I hear about a book when it is launched but somehow miss the tide. Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce was published in 2018 and two weeks later became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. In 2019 it was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club. The first few pages are fresh and engaging, light humour at a time when people when people were living day to day in the Blitz. My only doubt was that I would find the jolly tone too much if it continued for the whole novel. AJ PearceIt is 1941 in London and Emmy Lake applies for a job as a war correspondent and  instead finds herself typing up letters for the problem page of a distinctly faded women’s magazine, Woman’s Friend. The premise is fascinating. The tone is full-on jolly which at times is irritating. The strength of the book for me lies in the second half.
Emmy lives with her friend Bunty on the top floor of Bunty’s grandmother’s house. Both girls have daytime war jobs and volunteer in the evenings. Emmy is frustrated by her boss Mrs Bird’s dismissive rules about letters from emotional young women and starts to reply directly to the women, hiding the letters and posting her replies in secret. When she doesn’t get found out, she becomes bolder, and prints one of her replies in the magazine. Dumped by telegram by her boyfriend, Emmy agrees to go out with Bunty and her boyfriend William and finds herself set up with a blind date. As Emmy’s love life takes a turn for the better, the girls’ friendship is tested as it has never been tested before. Inevitably, Emmy’s letter writing catches up with her in spectacular fashion and she is sent home.
The book is at its best when examining the relationship between Emmy and Bunty, the depth of their loyalty, and what happens when cracks begin to appear. This is a lightweight, cozy war romance which takes a serious tone towards the end. An easy weekend read.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

If you like this, try:-
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter
‘You’ll Never See Me Again’ by Lesley Pearse
‘One Step Too Far’ by Tina Seskis

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DEAR MRS BIRD by AJ Pearce https://wp.me/p5gEM4-49f via @SandraDanby