A somewhat crowded but engagingly written historical drama.
Henley’s third novel depicts the trials of a young aspiring singer at the outset of World War II.
Twenty-year-old Englishwoman Kate Murphy has always dreamt of performing songs in front of an audience. The problem lies not in any lack of talent, but in her hiccupping, which began following the dissolution of her relationship with teen heartthrob Tony Trent and announces itself whenever she gets nervous. In September 1939, she decides to leave her parents’ home in Carshalton for an apartment closer to London, from which she intends to pursue her dream with the help of her Oxford University–educated best friend, Sybil Thorndyke. Kate’s announcement to her parents on the morning of September 3, however, is interrupted by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s televised declaration of war with Germany. Everything changes as Kate’s mother, Mary Grace, descends into a seemingly interminable well of worry. Kate puts off her departure, resuming her post teaching singing at St. Bridget’s School for Girls. Her youngest brother, Ryan, is sent to the country, where he’ll hopefully be safe from the threat of bombings. Sybil leaves, too—for where, she’s unable to say. Kate also begins to see Barry, a young mechanic who’s soon drafted to fight in Belgium. One somewhat peripheral subplot involves one of Kate’s students—a Jewish German refugee named Hannah Bell, whose parents beg Kate to look after her; Kate’s potential rekindling of a past relationship and her ongoing efforts to banish her hiccups are also addressed. Taken altogether, English author Henley amasses ample and often compelling subject matter that keeps the narrative moving forward. However, readers may be divided as to whether all the narratives bear themselves out effectively. Indeed, some may feel that the resolutions of some narrative threads feel halfhearted or rushed. Still, the book’s sturdy, sustained prose, as when Kate’s family listens to a speech by the king (“She scrutinised the long faces of her family. Everyone sat transfixed, unblinking. There was no way she could leave home just now”), will briskly propel readers through this generally thoughtful wartime bildungsroman.
A somewhat crowded but engagingly written historical drama.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781647426149
Page Count: 285
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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