Tag: WW2

#BookReview Beyond This Broken Sky by Siobhan Curham @Bookouture

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Beyond This Broken Sky - Blog Tour

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Beyond This Broken Sky by Siobhan Curham. My thanks to Sarah Hardy for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Bookouture for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

Beyond This Broken SkyAbout the Book

1940, London. As a volunteer for the ambulance service, Ruby has the dangerous task of driving along pitch-dark roads during the blackout. With each survivor she pulls from the rubble, she is helping to fight back against the enemy bombers, who leave nothing but destruction in their wake. Assigned to her crew is Joseph, who is unable to fight but will stop at nothing to save innocent lives. Because he is not in uniform, people treat him with suspicion and Ruby becomes determined to protect this brave, compassionate man who has rescued so many, and captured her heart. Even if it means making an unthinkable choice between saving her own life and risking everything for his…

2019, London. Recently divorced Edi feels lost and alone when she moves to London to start a new life. Until she makes a discovery, hidden beneath a loose floorboard in her attic, that reveals a secret about the people who lived there in the 1940s. As she gradually uncovers a wartime love story full of danger and betrayal, Edi becomes inspired by the heroism of one incredible woman and the legacy that can be left behind by a single act of courage…

Format: ebook (316 pages)           Publisher: Bookouture
Publication date: 20th April 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction, Dual Time

Find Beyond This Broken Sky on Goodreads

Purchase links
Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Beyond This Broken Sky alternates between two timelines – London in 1940 and 2019 – and is narrated from three points of view.

Set at the height of the Blitz on London in September 1940, the wartime storyline is shared between Ruby Glenville, owner of a large house converted into flats, and one of her tenants, Joseph O’Toole.

Ruby and Joseph’s initial reaction is one of mutual dislike, emulating the formula used so successfully by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice. While acknowledging her beauty, Joseph disapproves of what he sees as Ruby’s privileged life and the séances she holds, believing her guilty of deceiving those who take part. Meanwhile, Ruby, whilst noting his resemblance to Clark Gable, finds it difficult to overcome her distaste for Joseph’s pacifism, especially because of the impact on her deceased father of his experiences in the First World War.

I have to say I had some sympathy with Joseph’s view to begin with. From the evidence, Ruby’s séances are theatrical enterprises utilising the ventriloquism skills learned from her grandfather and the performance techniques passed on to her by her actor father. Her attempts to convince herself that her motivation is merely a desire to bring comfort to others doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. Add to that her willingness to endure dinner with a man she describes as ‘an insufferable bore’ simply because it involves a trip to the Savoy Grill, and treating the news of the bombing of Burlington Arcade as a ‘personal affront’ because of the many afternoons she had spent there  purchasing a new silk scarf or perfume.

I began to warm a little more to Ruby as her protective instincts towards her friend and tenant, the ‘timid as a mouse’ Kitty, became evident and I shared Ruby’s view of Kitty’s husband as a particularly horrid specimen of manhood. Her efforts to inject a little happiness into Kitty’s life were laudable if, as it transpires, misguided. And I had to acknowledge Ruby’s bravery when she volunteers to become a member of an ambulance crew, a particularly dangerous occupation driving through the dark, bomb-damaged, streets of London. Eventually, both Ruby and Joseph are forced to question their previous beliefs.

In the modern day storyline, Edi recently divorced from husband Marty, is now living in the top floor apartment of a house in an exclusive square. Narrated in the first person, this storyline was enlivened for me by Edi’s friendship with Pearl, her downstairs neighbour. The formidable and rather eccentric Pearl is the owner of an extensive library and also an author, most recently of mysteries but previously of a book set in wartime London. When Edi acquires a copy of the  latter the two storylines begin to merge. So much so that it becomes a touch metafictional as Edi reads in Pearl’s book the thoughts of its female protagonist that she had ‘lived her entire adult life as if she were the heroine in a story of her own creation.’

I confess the wartime storyline held the most interest for me, with the modern day story feeling as if it was merely a framing device. Like Edi as she reaches the final chapters of Pearl’s book, I found myself keen to get back to the wartime story and find out how it ends.  I thought the author did a great job of conveying the atmosphere of London during the Blitz, such as this dramatic description of what Ruby and Joseph experience one night whilst out on call in the ambulance. ‘The sky up ahead of them was now ablaze with searchlights, tracer bullets and parachute flares and, every so often, the blinding flash of white light as a bomb exploded.  It was like a surreal storm in a surreal nightmare that just wouldn’t end.’

The romance element of the book was touching and no doubt representative of many a snatched wartime relationship. I also liked the way the author took the opportunity to point out the differences between the experiences of the privileged and those less fortunate during the Blitz, such as the lack of provision of proper underground shelters in the poorer parts of London.  And I certainly wasn’t aware The Savoy had its own rather sumptuously fitted out shelter for the use of hotel guests or that, initially, people were forbidden from taking shelter in Underground stations during air raids.

Beyond This Broken Sky will appeal to fans of dual time stories that combine a wealth of period detail, an element of mystery, a touch of melodrama and a generous helping of romance.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Bookouture via NetGalley.

In three words: Romantic, atmospheric, engaging

Try something similar: The Night Train to Berlin by Melanie Hudson

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Siobhan Curham Author PhotoAbout the Author

Siobhan Curham is an award-winning author, ghost writer, editor and writing coach. She has also written for many newspapers, magazines and websites, including The Guardian, Breathe magazine, Cosmopolitan, Writers’ Forum, DatingAdvice.com, and Spirit & Destiny.

Siobhan has been a guest on various radio and TV shows, including Woman’s Hour, BBC News, GMTV and BBC Breakfast. And she has spoken at businesses, schools, universities and literary festivals around the world, including the BBC, Hay Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Bath Festival, Ilkley Festival, London Book Fair and Sharjah Reading Festival.

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#BookReview The Night Train to Berlin by Melanie Hudson

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The Night Train to BerlinAbout the Book

Two lost souls brought together by the chaos of war. A train journey into the past. A love that echoes through time.

Paddington Station, present day. A young woman boards the sleeper train to Cornwall with only a beautiful emerald silk evening dress and an old, well-read diary full of sketches. Ellie Nightingale is a shy violinist who plays like her heart is broken. But when she meets fellow passenger Joe she feels like she has been given that rarest of gifts…a second chance.

Paddington Station, 1944. Beneath the shadow of the war which rages across Europe, Alex and Eliza meet by chance. She is a gutsy painter desperate to get to the frontline as a war artist and he is a wounded RAF pilot now commissioned as a war correspondent. With time slipping away they make only one promise: to meet in Berlin when this is all over. But this is a time when promises are hard to keep, and hope is all you can hold in your heart.

Format: ebook (400 pages)            Publisher: One More Chapter
Publication date: 22nd April 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Dual Time

Find The Night Train to Berlin on Goodreads

Purchase links
Amazon UK
Link provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I was drawn to this book because of it’s partial World War 2 setting and, in particular, because elements of the story unfold en route to Cornwall.  I’m familiar with the line from London Paddington to Penzance on which Eliza and Ellie travel from my own holiday trips, although never on the sleeper service.

The story unfolds in chapters that alternate between Eliza in 1944 and Ellie in the present day. The plot relies on large helpings of coincidence, requiring a belief in fate or destiny, and bringing to mind the oft-quoted line, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine” from the film Casablanca. As it happens, the film is referenced several times in the book.

The relationship between Eliza Grey and Alex Levine that begins after a chance encounter on a wartime train journey had a real fizz to it, even if Eliza’s initial reaction is less than promising. ‘She had never, in all of her life, met such an arrogant, self-opinionated, curt and, quite frankly, rude individual.’ As we learned from Pride and Prejudice, first impressions can be deceptive. On the other hand, Joe, whom Ellie meets in similar fashion, although pleasant enough, didn’t feel like a fully fleshed out character and I didn’t find myself as invested in their relationship as I did in that between Eliza and Alex.

I found it easy to imagine the glamour of the 1940s sleeper train to Cornwall; less so its modern day equivalent which, I suspect, would be considerably more utilitarian even when dressed in its costume of 1940s themed party train. And with all due respect to car attendant, Rihanna, she’s no match for her 1940s equivalent, the stately Jeffries.

I thought Eliza’s wartime story was by far the most successful element of the book so much so that, at times, the sections with Ellie felt like mere interludes. In fact, the main purpose of the modern storyline seemed to be to act as a framing device for telling Eliza’s story.  Even though the author injected some jeopardy into Ellie’s personal story, I felt the modern day timeline could have been shunted off to the sidings. Having said that, there were some neat parallels between the two timelines, such as the eavesdropping couple across the aisle of the railway carriage and Joe’s choice of costume. And was his fluffy canine companion a nod to WW2 RAF hero Wing Commander Guy Gibson, portrayed in the film The Dambusters by Richard Todd? 

The wartime sections of the book include some memorable scenes such as when Eliza, deployed as a nursing auxiliary to a hospital ship on the South coast, records in her sketchbook the preparations for D-Day. Or when she experiences the heady days following the Allied liberation of Paris. 

The author sheds a fascinating light on the role played by war artists and war correspondents in documenting conflict, and the risks they took in doing so. The hardships too, living alongside the troops in often spartan conditions. Eliza has conflicted feelings about her role as a war artist. Is she right to depict the truth of the atrocities she sees, or should she be mindful of their potential impact on morale back home and present a more ‘sanitized’ picture?

Although compelling in parts, I felt The Night Train to Berlin spent a little too much time travelling along branch lines rather than speeding to its destination.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of One More Chapter via NetGalley. The Night Train to Berlin is available as an ebook now and will be published in paperback on 27th July 2021.

In three words: Dramatic, romantic, dual-time

Try something similar: You Let Me Go by Eliza Graham

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Melanie HudsonAbout the Author

Melanie Hudson was born in Yorkshire in 1971, the youngest of six children. Her earliest memory is of standing with her brother on the street corner selling her dad’s surplus vegetables (imagine The Good Life in Barnsley and you’re more or less there).

After running away to join the British armed forces in 1994, Melanie experienced a career that took her around the world on some exciting adventures. In 2010, when she returned to civilian life to look after her young son, on a whim, she moved to Dubai where she found the time to write women’s fiction. She now lives in Cornwall with her family.

Her debut, The Wedding Cake Tree, won the Romantic Novelists’ Association Contemporary Romance Novel of the Year 2016. (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

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