Tag: blogtour

#BookReview Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees @HarperFiction

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Miss Graham BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees which was published on 23rd July 2020. I’m delighted to be co-hosting today’s stop with the lovely Nicola at Short Book & Scribes. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to get involved and to HarperCollins for my review copy.

20200717_093842-1About the Book

An ordinary woman. A book of recipes. The perfect cover for spying…

Sent to Germany in the chaotic aftermath of World War II, Edith Graham is finally getting the chance to do her bit. Having taught at a girls’ school during the conflict, she leaps at the opportunity to escape an ordinary life – but Edith is not everything she seems to be.

Under the guise of her innocent cover story, Edith has been recruited to root out Nazis who are trying to escape prosecution. Secretly, she is sending coding messages back to the UK, hidden inside innocuous recipes sent to a friend – after all, who would expect notes on sauerkraut to contain the clues that would crack a criminal underground network?

But the closer she gets to the truth, the muddier the line becomes between good and evil. In a dangerous world of shifting loyalties, when the enemy wears the face of a friend, who do you trust?

Format: Hardcover (480 pages)    Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 23rd July 2020 Genre: Historical fiction

Find Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook on Goodreads

Purchase links*
Amazon UK| Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Of the many things I loved about Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook, the standout was Miss Graham herself. Edith is smart, shrewd and eager to do good, to make a difference. Her family don’t see it that way, but her decision to work for the Control Commission in Germany is not an excuse to shirk family responsibilities, it’s out of a desire to do something. “All through the war, she’d seen others leave to join the forces, do useful work. She’d done nothing. She felt wasted and unfulfilled, as though she’d missed an important experience.”

Edith has a keen sense of justice and shows empathy towards those whom others ignore. For example, the German maids employed in the house where she is billeted are treated as mere skivvies, symbols of a defeated nation, by some of the other girls who live there. Edith treats them as equals, listens to their stories and tries to help them where she can. However, Edith is no straight-laced prude; she’s not averse to the occasional amorous adventure.

I also loved Edith’s friends, Adeline and Dori, equally remarkable women with their own very personal missions to undertake, whether that’s exposing the realities of war to the wider public or learning the fate of wartime comrades. (In respect of the latter, I liked the inclusion of references to real-life heroines who served with the Special Operations Executive, such as Noor Inayat Khan.) Both Adeline and Dori will prove to be true friends to Edith in a way I found especially moving.

There are so many clever touches in the book. Not just the recipes and menus at the beginning of each chapter, or the central idea of using a cookery book to send coded messages, but the use of cooking as a metaphor. For example, the process of collecting intelligence is described as “a patient gathering. A foraging, a nosing up of morsels” and, at one point, Edith fears she’s “following a breadcrumb trail of duplicity”. Other clever elements include Edith’s invented friend who provides her with convenient excuses for trips away, reminding me of Algernon Moncrieff’s invalid friend Bunbury in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and the intriguing prologue which I simply had to reread – with fresh insight – once I’d finished the book.

The gap between “the conquerors and the conquered” is vividly brought home in the contrast between the generous portions of food enjoyed by the Allies in their messes or billets and that of the German citizens and thousands of displaced people “caught like a feather on the great gusting breath of war, picked up and put down again”. Not for the British or Americans pancakes made of potato peelings or ‘tea’ made from pine needles, but copious quantities of toast and jam, and homely dishes such as spotted dick. The period detail about food, clothing and so on, and the descriptions of the bomb-damaged German cities with their “churned streets carved through ruins and rubble” is clearly the result of impeccable and lengthy research.

Although there are delicious sounding recipes for cakes and pastries, Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook is definitely not all sweetness. Far from it. There are sour and bitter flavours as well, and moments of real darkness that may shock and surprise you. For example, the testimonies of some of the people Edith encounters; tales of suffering, displacement and wartime atrocities that are a “black muster roll of monstrous perversions”. Like the reader, Edith awakens to the growing realisation that no side has the monopoly on right and – like that hotel dinner menu staple, the Vienna steak – not everything is exactly what it claims to be. The warning “There’s a darker side of life in the Zone” proves all too true.

The final chapters are full of drama and tension, keeping me completely gripped. If you’ll pardon the pun, Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook contains all the ingredients I look for in great historical fiction. I loved everything about it and it’s definitely in the running to be one of my favourite books of the year.

In three words: Compelling, moving, dramatic

Try something similar: Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton

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Celia ReesAbout the Author

Celia Rees was born in Solihull, West Midlands, UK. She studied History and Politics at Warwick University and has a Master’s degree from Birmingham University. She taught English in city comprehensive schools for seventeen years before beginning her writing career.

She is the author of over twenty acclaimed books for young adults and has won various prizes both in Britain and abroad. Her work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Celia lives in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, with her husband. Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook is her first adult novel.

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#BookReview The Young Survivors by Debra Barnes @Duckbooks

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EdS7yG3XsAEgMZ2Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Young Survivors by Debra Barnes which will be published on Thursday 23rd July 2020. My thanks to Fanny at Duckworth for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my proof copy.

9780715653555About the Book

What if everyone you loved was suddenly taken away?

When Germany invades France in the Second World War, the five Laskowski children lose everything: their home, their Jewish community and, most devastatingly, their parents who are abducted in the night. There is no safe place left for them to evade the Nazis, but they cling together – never certain when the authorities will come for what is left of them.

Inspired by the poignant, true story of the author’s mother, this moving historical novel conveys the hardship, the uncertainty and the impossible choices the Laskowski children were forced to make to survive the horrors of the Holocaust.

Format: Paperback (304 pages)    Publisher: Duckworth
Publication date: 23rd July 2020 Genre: Historical fiction

Find The Young Survivors on Goodreads

Pre-order/Purchase links*
Amazon UK | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The Young Survivors concerns the children of the Laskowski family – eldest son, Pierre, his younger brothers, Samuel and Claude, and his two young sisters, twins Georgette and Henriette. Alternating between the first person narratives of Pierre, Samuel and occasionally Georgette, their experiences are related without any literary flourishes, reflecting both their youth and the fact they don’t always understand, at least to begin with, the full import or implications of the things they see and hear. Indeed, for the younger children, moving to a new place is often merely an opportunity for exploration or to make new friends.

Opening in 1938, initially the prospect of war seems a distant possibility despite the fact the family live in Metz, close to France’s border with Germany. They, like so many others, place their faith in the Maginot line. Only gradually do the youngsters become aware of the consequences of their Jewish faith as playground abuse by other children develops into more virulent anti-Jewish sentiment, fuelled by broadcasts of Hitler’s speeches, and then to legal restrictions on their daily lives. Forced to move to Sally, a village near Poitiers, it places them in the demarcation zone beyond Vichy France when the Germans invade.

Through the children’s faithful accounts of everything that happens to them, the book reveals how life in wartime France for Jewish families like the Laskowskis, whichever side of the demarcation line, becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous. The Vichy government collaborates in the implementation of anti-Jewish laws and the rounding up of Jews to meet German quotas. Only the courage of a few French men and women keeps the children safe, even if that does involve frequent moves. Nevertheless, they still suffer the anguish of separation and not knowing what has become of their parents.

As the end of the war approaches, there are increasingly dramatic scenes with narrow escapes and sudden changes of location. Yet when peace does finally come it does not necessarily bring an end to the challenges faced by the children. For me, it was at this point in the book that the author really captured the emotional and psychological toll of their experiences. In Samuel’s words: “The hope, the anticipation, the wait…and then the disappointment and despair”.

Pierre’s narrative gives the reader a picture of a young man with a keen sense of responsibility to protect his younger siblings. With the arrest of his mother and father, aunt and uncle, he’s suddenly thrust into the position of having to make potentially life or death decisions on behalf of others even as the world he knows crumbles around him.

The chapters narrated by Georgette I found especially poignant. As a twin, the threat of separation is even more overwhelming and, for such a young child, the hatred her family face is difficult for her to understand. “Without our parents to explain it to us, we had no idea what it was to be Jewish except it meant the Germans and many of the French hated us.” It was heart-warming to witness her enjoyment of simple, if rare, pleasures like a visit to the park or playing with her doll.

In war, there are rarely happy endings but in the final chapters the reader does at least get some answers to the questions raised in the prologue.

Books, even if works of fiction, that tell the stories of Holocaust survivors are often difficult to read. However, they are usually an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit. The Young Survivors is no exception. In her introduction, Debra writes, “As the generation of Holocaust survivors pass away, the mantel of responsibility for telling survival stories rests on the second generation.” I would go further and say even those with no direct connection owe it to those who suffered to ensure their stories continue to be heard. Indeed, the fact The Young Survivors is written from the perspective of the Laskowski children, I think means the book would be both accessible and educational for teenage readers.

I found The Young Survivors an absorbing story of loss, separation, courage and hope.

In three words: Authentic, factual, moving

Try something similar: The Hidden Village by Imogen Matthews or Living Among the Dead by Adena Bernstein Astrowsky

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Debra Barnes
©Adam Soller Photography

About the Author

Debra Barnes studied journalism and has contributed to the Jewish News. Since January 2017 she has run a project called My Story for The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) to produce individual life story books for Holocaust survivors and refugees. She has been interviewed by BBC Radio regarding her mother’s story and has had a short documentary made about her research. Debra lives in North London and The Young Survivors is her first book.

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