About the Book
It’s 1959 and time for eighteen-year-old Sophie’s real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father, the Reverend Osbert Knox, and his frustrated wife Alice, is stultifying. She finds diversion and excitement in a love affair, but soon realizes that if she wants to live life on a bigger canvas she must take matters into her own hands.
She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her French mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but it will be her chance to discover more about her family background, and, perhaps, to find a place where she can finally belong.
When Sophie eventually arrives in the Paris arising from the ashes of the war, it’s both everything she imagined, and not at all what she expected…
Format: eARC (448 pages) Publisher: Corvus
Publication date: 4th April 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction
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My Review
Fifteen years might seem a long time after the end of the Second World War but in fact its impact lingers on, as the author deftly explores in Bonjour, Sophie. For some, like Sophie’s foster mother Alice, war had been so much a battle for survival that even the slim pickings of life offered afterwards are, if not enough, then better than nothing. For others, there are physical scars but also mental scars from the things they saw and the things they were forced to do in order to survive.
Along with her dream of a more fulfilling and independent life, Sophie harbours a deep need to know about her father, a man she never met, including how he died. Was he the hero of the French Resistance she has always believed him to be?
Having made it to Paris, her first job involves contact with people who also looking for someone but for quite different reasons. She describes them to her friend Hettie as ‘drenched in yearning’. Her own search for answers involves some subterfuge, as well as ignoring the warnings that she may not like what she finds out. ‘War triggers vendettas. Paris was, and is, not exempt. Asking questions exposes secrets, and some are best left hidden.’ A brief glimpse of a more luxurious lifestyle proves tempting but, she realises, would bring the sort of obligations and constraints she has set her face against.
Paris offers Sophie myriad new experiences which help to banish, albeit not completely, memories of the disappointments, losses and unpleasant experiences of her life in Sussex. Yet even here, the buildings carry the marks of conflict. ‘The war was over. The war was not over. Peeling paint. Damaged stonework.’
Sophie makes a spirited and engaging heroine. She’s intelligent, witty and once she has decided on a course of action she is resolute – and resourceful – in following it through. I also liked the storyline involving Sophie’s friend and confidante, Hettie, who belatedly embarks on her own journey from the constraints of parental and societal expectations.
Bonjour, Sophie is an engaging, nuanced coming-of-age story that captures a world on the cusp of social change and I very much enjoyed spending time with Sophie on her journey.
I received an advance reader copy courtesy of Corvus Books via NetGalley.
In three words: Absorbing, insightful, emotional
Try something similar: A Complicated Matter by Anne Youngson
About the Author
Elizabeth Buchan was a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prize-winning Consider the Lily, international bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The New Mrs Clifton and The Museum of BrokenPromises. Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for the Sunday Times, The Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She was a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival.
Connect with Elizabeth
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