Forgive me, Dorothea, for I cannot forgive you. What you do, to this child, to this child's mother, it is wrong...
Roberta likes to collect the letters and postcards she finds in second-hand books. When her father gives her some of her grandmother's belongings, she finds a baffling letter from the grandfather she never knew - dated after he supposedly died in the war.
Dorothy is unhappily married to Albert, who is away at war. When an aeroplane crashes in the field behind her house she meets Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski, and as their bond deepens she dares to hope she might find happiness. But fate has other plans for them both, and soon she is hiding a secret so momentous that its shockwaves will touch her granddaughter many years later...
Thank you to Hodder for sending me a copy of this book for review. I heard about this book when it was released earlier this year and thought it sounded so intriguing, so I added it to my wish list and decided I would get this to read in the summer. Before I could do this though the lovely people at Hodder sent me a review copy in the post and I was so excited! Obviously as I have an obsession with books, so anything to do with bookshops I am going to love and this did not disappoint me!
I loved the whole plot of the story, the bookshop is so real in my head I can imagine myself in there for hours reading, browsing and buying so many of the books. I love the idea of finding letters and tickets in old books that people so many years ago probably used as bookmarks.
I don’t think I have read a novel like this before, one that is set over two different time zones. The book follows Roberta in the present day and her grandmother Dorothy in the 1930’s. Both women are perfect characters that are very intriguing and unique, this makes you want to follow their stories more just to find out what has happened in the past and what it will lead Roberta to in the future. The story just keeps moving the whole way through and you get completely sucked in. I loved that we have two characters that are both from different eras because as well as learning about them we get to see how different the culture is and how people were different then to how they are now. Although there are so many differences between both women, they both have secrets they are hiding from those close to them. I loved, loved, loved the concept and I think this book will inspire other authors to write in this way.
Roberta works in a book store and likes to collect postcards or letter that she finds in books, or in this case a suitcase. Working in a book store keeps this hobby going as there are always new letters to find in the new/old books that come into the store. When Roberta’s father gives her a suitcase which belonged to her grandmother, she is in for a surprise she didn’t expect when she finds a letter about her grandmother, revealing something she would never expect. We then learn about Dorothy, Roberta’s grandmother, who was living in the 1930’s, was in a marriage that wasn't working out and with her husband away at war she decides to start helping two women who work as land girls to give her some fulfillment during the war.
This is one of those books that you fall deeper and deeper into the story and you have a major book hangover when you are finished! Louise has such an amazing way with words and writing that you don’t even feel like you are reading a book, the research that has gone into this book is phenomenal, it feels so real as if Louise and us are really in the 1930’s. I loved that Louise included parts of the letters and postcards that Roberta finds in the book, it makes it so much more real than having to guess what they might say or the way they have been written. What made this book so much better for me was that you just didn’t know what was going to happen, it was so unpredictable which made it exciting right up until the very last page.
This is the perfect debut novel and I have fallen in love with the writing of Louise Walters! There are so many good things about this book and I urge anybody, male or female to read this book as I think anybody would enjoy it. I cannot wait to read more by Louise. I think we have a bestseller right here!
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