Month: February 2020

#BookReview Summerland by Lucy Adlington @HotKeyBooksYA @ReadersFirst1

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SummerlandAbout the Book

October,1946. The Red Cross escorts a group of child refugees from Europe to England. Among them is Brigitta – a serious, silent figure with worn clothes and a small cardboard suitcase containing a single grey glove. Arriving in London, Brigitta breaks from the group and runs . . .

Brigitta’s mission: to reach Summerland Hall and find the one person who can solve a wartime mystery. But Summerland holds secrets and shadows of its own . . . and perhaps the key to a new life and new beginnings.

An extraordinarily rich tale of love, prejudice, truth and forgiveness, inspired by real events.

Format: Paperback (320 pages)              Publisher: Hot Key Books
Publication date: 5th September 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, YA

Purchase links*
Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com| Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Summerland on Goodreads

My Review

Through the character of Brigitta, Summerland brings to life the story of children who survived the Nazi concentration camps or were orphaned by the War and who were brought to Britain as refugees. The reader gradually learns of Brigitta’s traumatic experiences: forced into hiding for fear of persecution as a Jew, sheltering alongside her mother in bomb-damaged buildings, searching for scraps of food.

Arriving at Summerland Hall, a place she was told about by her mother, Brigitta’s wonder at being offered the luxury of jam to stir into her porridge reminds the reader of the contrast with the privations she has suffered. This is also cleverly brought home by Brigitta’s very different reaction from that of the village children to things like men in uniform, fireworks on Bonfire Night or games like Murder in the Dark. ‘The words were ominous, but in England, it seemed murder in the dark didn’t mean watching your neighbours getting shot at three in the morning.’ Ironically, Brigitta recalls being told by her mother during the time they were in hiding to think of it like a game.

Amid the more serious subject matter there are some lovely touches of humour, from the failure of Brigitta’s English/German dictionary to cope with phrases such as Toad in the Hole to the quirky chapter headings representing the unfamiliar foodstuffs Brigitta encounters – Fish-Paste Sandwiches, Bacon Butties, Violet Creams. And anyone of my generation who experienced school lunches may chuckle, as I did, at her impression of being served a plate of liver and onions. ‘The liver was like leather with bits of rubber piping in. […] The onions looked like beige phlegm.’ Sorry, if you were eating your dinner while reading that!

A character I particularly liked was Summerland’s cook, Sophie Rover, for her kindness to Brigitta and her simple philosophy of life that everyone should be well fed and comfortable. As Brigitta sagely observes: ‘If only she had been leader of the Third Reich, not Hitler. Meatuntooveg instead of mass murder, misery and world war.’

When Lady Summer, owner of Summerland Hall, embarks on the restoration of the house following its requisitioning for military use during the war, it seems an analogy for recovery after conflict. It’s as if Brigitta’s arrival has brought new life to the house, such as the rather different kind of musical entertainment at the traditional New Year’s Eve party or Lady Summer’s uncharacteristic hospitality towards the village children. However, Brigitta herself sees only the ghosts of the past.

As Brigitta’s past catches up with her things turn darker and the reader is reminded of the suspicion and recriminations that can linger after conflict and the physical and mental scars caused by war. Finally, the secret that has brought Brigitta to Summerland is revealed, offering the prospect of a different, and perhaps unexpected, future for her and others.

Although aimed at young adults, Summerland is an engrossing, emotional and beautifully crafted story that will engage readers of all ages. I loved it.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Hot Key Books and Readers First.

In three words: Moving, compelling, uplifting

Try something similar: The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

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About the Author

Lucy Adlington is a writer and clothes historian. Her novels for teenagers, including The Diary of Pelly D, Burning Mountain and The Red Ribbon have been nominated and shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, the Manchester Book Prize, the Leeds Book Prize and the Rotherham Book Award. She tours the UK with dress history presentations and writes history books for adults, including Women’s Lives and Clothes in WW2: Ready for Action and Stitches in Time: the Story of the Clothes We Wear.

Connect with Lucy
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#WWWWednesday – 12th February 2020

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

An audiobook, a book for a blog tour and a book from my TBR pile.

Heaven My HomeHeaven, My Home (Highway 59 #2) by Attica Locke (audiobook)

Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he’s alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him – and all goes dark.

Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who’s never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she’s not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.

An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas – and some of the era’s racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi’s disappearance has links to Darren’s last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy’s grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself.

516zEuy13+L._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_Stasi Winter (Karin Müller #5) by David Young (paperback, courtesy of  Zaffre and Readers First)

IN 1978 EAST GERMANY, NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS.
The state’s power is absolute, history is re-written, and the ‘truth’ is whatever the Stasi say it is.

So when the murder of a woman is officially labelled an ‘accidental death’, Major Karin Müller of the People’s Police is faced with a dilemma.

To solve the crime, she must defy the official version of events. But defying the Stasi means putting her own life – and the lives of her young family – in danger.

As the worst winter in history holds Germany in its freeze, Müller must untangle a web of state secrets and make a choice: between the truth and a lie, justice and injustice, and, ultimately, life and death.

Dieudonné_RealLifeReal Life by Adeline Dieudonné (advance review copy, courtesy of World Editions)

A fierce and poetic debut on surviving the wilderness of family life.

At home there are four rooms: one for her, one for her brother, one for her parents…and one for the carcasses. The father is a big game hunter, a powerful predator; the mother is submissive to her violent husband’s demands. The young narrator spends the days with her brother, playing in the shells of cars dumped for scrap and listening out for the chimes of the ice-cream truck, until a brutal accident shatters their world.

The uncompromising pen of Adeline Dieudonné wields flashes of brilliance as she brings her characters to life in a world that is both dark and sensual. This breathtaking debut is a sharp and funny coming-of-age tale in which reality and illusion collide.

Recently finished

The Bermondsey BookshopThe Bermondsey Bookshop by Mary Gibson (eARC, courtesy of Head of Zeus and NetGalley)

Set in 1920s London, this is the inspiring story of Kate Goss’s struggle against poverty, hunger and cruel family secrets.

Her mother died in a fall, her father has vanished without trace, and now her aunt and cousins treat her viciously. In a freezing, vermin-infested garret, factory girl Kate has only her own brave spirit and dreams of finding her father to keep her going. She has barely enough money to feed herself, or to pay the rent. The factory where she works begins to lay off people and it isn’t long before she has fallen into the hands of the violent local money-lender. That is until an unexpected opportunity comes her way – a job cleaning a most unusual bookshop, where anyone, from factory workers to dockers, can learn to read and then buy books cheaply. A new world opens up, but with it come new dangers, too.

Based on the true story of the Bermondsey Bookshop, this is the most inspiring and gripping novel Mary Gibson has yet written.

SummerlandSummerland by Lucy Adlington (paperback, courtesy of Hot Key Books and Readers First)

Brigid is one of a group of child refugees being escorted to England by the Red Cross in October 1946. She is a serious, silent figure, with worn clothes and shoes and a small cardboard suitcase containing all her belongings. On arrival at Waterloo station however, Brigid breaks from the group and runs…

Brigid has a secret which she has buried deep inside her. She also has an ulterior motive: she needs to find a place called Summerland Hall where she hopes she will find the one person left alive who is deeply important to her.

An extraordinary tale, with some events inspired by history, that encompasses truth, tolerance, racism and forgiveness. (Review to follow)

355 The Women of Washington's Spy Ring355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring by Kit Sergeant (ebook, courtesy of the author)

Who was the Mysterious 355? Culper Ring members such as Robert Townsend and Hercules Mulligan are well known for the part they played in the Revolutionary War, but who was the mysterious 355 that could “outwit them all?”

Inspired by many of the same characters featured in AMC’s Turn and the Broadway musical Hamilton, 355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring chronicles the lives of three remarkable women who use daring, skill, and, yes, a bit of flirtation, to help liberate America. Told from the viewpoints of these three women, including the one operating under the code name 355, 355: The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring is an absorbing tale of family, duty, love, and betrayal. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

41pum92q8oLWild Spinning Girls by Carol Lovekin (eARC, courtesy of Honno Press)

If it wasn’t haunted before she came to live there, after she died, Ty’r Cwmwl made room for her ghost. She brought magic with her.

And the house, having held its breath for years, knew it. Ida Llewellyn loses her job and her parents in the space of a few weeks and, thrown completely off course, she sets out for the Welsh house her father has left her. Ty’r Cwmwl is not at all welcoming despite the fact it looks inhabited, as if someone just left..

It is being cared for as a shrine by the daughter of the last tenant. Determined to scare off her old home’s new landlord, Heather Esyllt Morgan sides with the birds who terrify Ida and plots to evict her. The two girls battle with suspicion and fear before discovering that the secrets harboured by their thoughtless parents have grown rotten with time. Their broken hearts will only mend once they cast off the house and its history, and let go of the keepsakes that they treasure like childhood dreams.