Tag: WW2

Throwback Thursday: Shelter by Sarah Franklin

whatcathyreadnext3 Comments

ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme originally created by Renee at It’s Book Talk. It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.

Today I’m revisiting a book I reviewed early on in my blogging ‘career’ – Shelter by Sarah Franklin.  First published in hardback July 2017, it was recently published in paperback with an evocative new cover. A perfect excuse to grab a copy if you haven’t already read this fabulous book!

You can read my original review below and also my interview with Sarah about Shelter here.

Shelter PBAbout the Book

Early Spring, 1944. In a clearing deep within an English forest two lost souls meet for the first time. Connie Granger has escaped the devastation of her bombed out city home. She has found work in the Women’s Timber Corps, and for her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose. Seppe, an Italian prisoner of war, is haunted by his memories. But in the forest camp, he finds a strange kind of freedom. Their meeting signals new beginnings. In each other they find the means to imagine their own lives anew and to face that which each fears the most.

But outside their haven, the world is ravaged by war and old certainties are crumbling. Both Connie and Seppe must make a life-defining choice which threatens their fragile existence. How will they make sense of this new world, and find their place within it? What does it mean to be a woman, or a foreign man, in these days of darkness and new light? A beautiful, gentle and deeply powerful novel about finding solace in the most troubled times, about love, about hope and about renewal after devastation. It asks us to consider what makes a family, what price a woman must pay to live as she chooses, and what we’d fight to the bitter end to protect.

Format: Hardcover, ebook, paperback (432 pp.)            Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre
Published: Hardcover 27th July ‘17, Paperback 31st May ’18 Genre: Historical Fiction

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

Find Shelter on Goodreads

My Review

All her life Connie’s had the urge to break away, to explore what life has to offer away from the streets and factories of Coventry. She doesn’t know what form this new life will take or how she’s going to do it. What she does know it that she’s got to do it. Spirited, determined and reckless, the Second World War brings Connie the opportunity to seek what she’s looking for but the price for that opportunity is a high one. Forced by circumstances to be totally self-reliant and desperate to leave bad memories behind, she joins the Women’s Timber Corps and finds herself posted to The Forest of Dean to train as a ‘lumberjill’.

Chance brings together Connie and Seppe, an Italian POW, who is trying to escape his own demons. Thoughtful and sensitive, Seppe is initially cowed by his traumatic relationship with his violent father whose malevolent presence seems able to reach even into the confines of the POW camp.  ‘The spikes of his father’s rancour were undimmed by the flimsy paper. A spiral of venom rose from the lines, the sheen of anger, pride and sheer vicious temper bitter in Seppe’s mouth.’

Despite being haunted by guilt and by what he witnessed during the war, Seppe gradually grows in inner strength as he finds acceptance from the local community.   For Connie and Seppe, the forest provides shelter from the outside world – quite literally at times.   However, for those born and bred in the forest, the war, and those it brings in its wake, is an unwanted incursion into their lives.  ‘Those evacuees are still out here, causing chaos in the school. And…we’ve got Yanks in the forest, whole regiments of them…The other big change is that we’ve got POWs up at Broadwell.’

The war is also a threat to the very existence of the forest itself with the constant demands for timber to support the war effort.  ‘The forest itself warned them of loss even as they chopped it down. Bloody great gaps staring at them in the very woods that had sheltered them all their lives, and people pulled from this life into a new world that swallowed them up.’

I loved the way the author made the forest another character in the story with almost human qualities: ‘Amos pushed in amongst the branches until they almost held him in an embrace.’ I thought the author struck a good balance between historical fact about wartime events and the story of Connie, Seppe and the other inhabitants of The Forest of Dean.   Sometimes events erred slightly on the side of convenience but I think we must allow an author some artistic licence and, who knows, sometimes things are just meant to be. Finally, I always admire an author who is brave enough not to spell out the conclusion of a book but to let the reader imagine it for themselves.

I thought this was an outstanding debut. Shelter has an authentic period atmosphere with wonderful characters who take you on an intense but heart-warming journey.  I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Bonnier Zaffre, in return for an honest review.

In three words: Intimate, atmospheric, emotional

Try something similar…Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik (read my review here)

Sarah FranklinAbout the Author

Sarah Franklin grew up in rural Gloucestershire and now lives with her family between Oxford and London. She has written for the Guardian, Psychologies magazine, The Pool, the Sunday Express and the Seattle Times. Her creative non-fiction has been published in anthologies in the USA and appeared on radio affiliates there. Sarah is founder and host of popular Oxford literary night, Short Stories Aloud, a Senior Lecturer at the Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies, and a judge for the Costa Short Story Award. She was awarded a mentorship under the Jerwood/Arvon scheme to work on her debut novel, Shelter, which will be published by Bonnier Zaffre in July 2017.

Connect with Sarah

Website ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads

Book Review: After the Party by Cressida Connolly

whatcathyreadnext6 Comments

After the PartyAbout the Book

‘Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. That is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.’

It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory.

At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (272 pp.)    Publisher: Viking
Published: 7th June 2018                         Genre: Historical Fiction

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

Find After the Party on Goodreads

My Review

It’s 1938 and returning to England from abroad, Phyllis gets involved with helping her sister, Nina, organise the summer camp Nina runs as part of her ‘peace work’ for a political movement. For quite a while the identity of the charismatic individual who heads the movement, referred to only as ‘the Leader’, is not revealed, although readers will probably have their suspicions given some of the unpalatable views espoused and the period in which the events take place.  What the book does well is reflect the range of views that prevailed at the time.  How many people were fearful of the prospect of war not so much because they were advocates of appeasement or supporters of the Nazi regime but because they feared the upheaval of war, remembering only too well the carnage wrought by the First World War.

I really enjoyed the way the book explores the changing dynamics of the relationship between the sisters – Phyllis, Nina and Patricia – and their different characters.  Phyllis is the peacemaker of the trio, trying to accommodate other’s wishes.  ‘I always wanted to be friends with both my sisters.  Perhaps that was the source, really, of all the troubles of my life.’

It has to be said that the social circle the sisters move in, particularly Patricia, is not populated by the nicest of people.  It is made up of individuals who don’t really seem to like each other that much but preserve the social niceties whilst attending dinner parties and the like.  Gossipy anecdotes, cruel little asides, mockery and petty snobbery seem to be the order of the day.   It’s a picture of a section of society, with their cooks, parlour maids and drivers, which despite all the airs and graces seem removed from the everyday lives and experiences of most people.    The sort of people who live in houses with a ‘morning room’, such as the house Phyllis’s husband, Hugh, plans to build.  ‘In the mornings Phyllis would be able to take her coffee and write her letters there; perhaps they might install a nice little sofa too, where she might like to sew or read.’

The book opens in 1979 as Phyllis recounts her memories of the period just before the Second World War and during the War itself to an unnamed and unidentified individual researching the history of that time.  What follow are extensive flashbacks as Phyllis recalls the events of that time, both public and private.   Some of what she recalls, especially the circumstances of her imprisonment, was certainly new to me and rather an eye-opener.  These sections of the book have a real feeling of authenticity, albeit the events described are slightly bizarre at times.

The author is a skilful writer; I especially liked the imaginative descriptions and quirky similes.  A few of my favourites:
‘Nina’s house stood a little way along from the garage, set back from the road politely, like someone waiting to be introduced.’
‘The tide was out and little boats lolled on their sides in their sandy mud, like the tongues of overheated dogs.’
‘There were blackberries plumping in the hedgerows now and buddleia, giving off a faint scent like pencil sharpenings.’

Although there were elements of After the Party I very much enjoyed, overall I was left with a slight sense of disappointment, the feeling that the book was less than the sum of its parts.  For example, the ‘moment of weakness’ referred to in the blurb seems a minor misdemeanour on Phyllis’s part and one in which she is not really the most guilty party or responsible for what follows.  Yet it seems to weigh on her conscience for the rest of her life so much so that she treats her draconian imprisonment as justified punishment.  Later Phyllis experiences what she views as a ‘betrayal’ but which did not really to amount to anything like that, it seemed to me.   I learned a lot from reading After the Party but wanted to feel more enthusiastic about the story than I did.

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Penguin Books UK/Viking, and NetGalley in return for an honest and unbiased review.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

In three words: Fascinating, well-researched, intimate

About the Author

Cressida Connolly is a reviewer and journalist, who has written for Vogue, The Telegraph, the Spectator, The Guardian and numerous other publications.

Cressida is the author of three books: The Happiest Days, which won the MacMillan/PEN Award, The Rare and the Beautiful and My Former Heart. Cressida is the daughter of writer Cyril Connolly. In 1985 she married Worcestershire farmer Charles Hudson. They have three children.

Connect with Cressida

Website  ǀ  Goodreads