Bird's Eye View by Elinor Florence - 20BOS26-14

For those of us who enjoy historical fiction, especially when set during WWII, it is a pleasure to encounter a book that reveals a new aspect of the war. Rose is a recent high school graduate, living on the family farm in Saskatchewan, and longing for the adventure of war overseas.  In the meantime, she has finagled a job as a reporter/photographer/Girl Friday at the local newspaper, The Touchwood Times. 

A Deceptive Devotion by Iona Wishaw - 20BOS26-12

It’s been six years since I visited Lane Winslow and her neighbors in King’s Cove, British Columbia, where she settled after WWII, hoping to find a peaceful place to rebuild her life. She has been partially successful: she is living in a shining white, old-fashioned house nestled on a dappled, sunlit green lawn, which she is extremely fond of; moreover, she has made numerous new friends and, in the previous book, became engaged to Frederick Darling, a former bomber pilot, who served in the RAF, now a police inspector in his native Canada.

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier - 20BOS26-11

Tracy Chevalier is best known for her book about Vermeer, Girl with the Pearl Earring, but her skill - whether writing about a 17th century Dutch servant or a Quaker newly arrived in pre-Civil War America - is her ability to transport the reader to that exact time and place. And being jilted at any time is painful but clearly even worse in a small Quaker community, which has happened to Honor. 

A Wartime Marriage, aka Flight from Bucharest, by Mary Jane Staples

Captain Harry Phillips, a British officer, is a prisoner of war in a German-controlled hospital in Romania. It’s 1918 and while Germany has gone from near-victory to an unsuccessful Spring Offensive on the Western Front leading to eventual defeat, its army and military intelligence are still feared. Harry is recovering from being shot in the thigh but has been treated well, so is not worried when he is summoned to meet with the German officer in charge of the hospital, Captain Carlsen.

A Far-flung Life by M. L. Stedman #20BOS26-5

I remember what a tear-jerker The Light Between Oceans was so I was not expecting an easy read in A Far-flung Life but it took nearly all of the 430 pages to get from tragedy to the promised resilience. This epic novel beginning on an Australian sheep station in 1958 features a small but compelling cast of characters.

A Murder in Marylebone by Emily Sullivan #20BOS26-4

Alas, A Murder in Marylebone barely mentions Marylebone and is too obviously written by an American, although it began promisingly. Minerva Harper, a widow with two children, has returned to London after some 15 years in Greece. Her husband, Oliver, was a diplomat but left the British Embassy and retired with his family to Corfu. Minnie remained there after his death, against the wishes of her family, and recently undertook some typing for a mystery writer, Stephen Dorian. 

A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick #20BOS26-1

Elizabeth Chadwick is an author I have enjoyed in the past but somehow I had not read any of her books since moving back to Boston, so she seemed a good candidate for the 20 Days of Summer. I gather her books about William Marshal are her most acclaimed so I meant to start with one of them but when I checked, it turned out that A Place Beyond Courage is a prequel about William’s father, so needed to come first. John FitzGilbert is a charismatic leader, the marshal to Henry I (1068 – 1135), and just 25 when the story begins.

“Change Your Life for €1,” the headline had read . . .

When she was at her lowest emotionally, Skye saw a competition to win a cottage in Greece for one euro, and entered. How she won and how the paperwork was completed quickly and without publicity requires some suspension of disbelief but, why not, every book needs a plot, and apparently this is an actual thing:

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl was the restaurant critic for the New York Times from 1993 to 1999, and although I doubt we frequented the same places, I often followed her reviews and enjoyed reading about the disguises she wore to avoid being recognized. Staff at high-end restaurants used to post pictures of her in the back, hoping not to be caught unawares. Somewhere in this house I have a copy of Tender at the Bone, the first of her five memoirs, but I have never got around to reading it. Last week, I was at my mother’s for dinner and she told me she had just enjoyed The Paris Novel and wanted me to read it because there were certain things I would appreciate. She was right: I started reading that very night and found there were many parts of Stella's travels that spoke to me.

The Harvey Girls in Fiction

Fred Harvey (1835–1901) was an entrepreneur who created the first American restaurant chain, multiple locations that served those traveling on the railroad. Beginning in 1876, he began opening restaurants along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. He hired young women between the ages of 18 and 30, known as “Harvey Girls,” who worked as waitresses, wore attractive uniforms, lived under strict chaperonage, and signed a contract not to marry before a year was up (the imbalance of women in the American southwest during this period meant they were in high demand). 

from CowgirlMagazine.com

Devil Water by Anya Seton

This is an old-fashioned family saga of a historical novel by an author whose gift for creating memorable characters was matched by her painstaking research on the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite Rebellions and the families who clung to the dream of the Stuarts regaining the throne. The story begins in 1709, when Charles Radcliffe, barely 16, is getting into trouble with a girl below his station, while he waits for his brother, James, the young Earl of Derwentwater, to return from France.

Marry in Haste, Repent at Leisure! Another 5 star book for the #1961 Club

There is probably a whole fictional sub-genre of governesses-in-jeopardy but few have the immediacy or appeal of Camilla Forest, the intrepid heroine of Marry in Haste. She has been dismissed from her job on a cold spring day and deposited by the side of the road to catch the mail coach to London. 

When a gentleman, passing by in his carriage, thoughtfully stops to tell her the coach is delayed until the following day, night is approaching and she has nowhere to go.

Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary, for the 1961 Club

Beverly Cleary’s only historical novel is about a sensitive girl with big dreams, living on a farm in 1920s Pitchfork, Oregon. The book is based on her own home of Yamhill and childhood experiences. Like Ramona Quimby, Emily Bartlett often gets carried away by her own imagination and (like many of us) is sensitive about being laughed at. 

The Sea Child by Linda Wilgus - a dramatic adventure in Cornwall

In this captivating historical novel, a grieving widow is drawn back to Cornwall, the location of her earliest memories, where she expects a quiet life but is drawn into friendship with a gang of smugglers. Impoverished after her naval husband’s death and unexpectedly touched by scandal, Isabel Henley flees London for a rustic cottage in Helston after her husband dies at Trafalgar on the HMS Neptune, leaving nothing but debts. 

Tapestry by Fiona McIntosh

Jane is a pragmatic Brit who met a handsome American in Cornwall five months ago and was swept off her feet. Despite being newly engaged, she has doubts about whether her fiancé, Will Maxwell, is The One, despite his good looks and devotion. When a freak accident leaves him in a coma, she feels guilty for her wavering commitment and tries to compensate by exploring various New Agey solutions, one of which catapults her from 1978 London to 1715 Scotland, married to Will’s ancestor, Lord Nithsdale. 

The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger - a final WWII novel for the year

In the first book of this WWII trilogy, a desperate mother in 1939 Berlin sends her children to what she hopes is safety in Britain. Ariella Bannon is a German Jew, married to Peter, a Catholic who was arrested five months ago for defending an old lady from Nazi thugs. She is afraid her husband is dead and is worried for her children: Liesl (10) and Erich (7). There is a chance to get them out of Berlin: a humanitarian effort, Kindertransport, is rescuing children from Nazi-controlled territory and bringing them to Britain. 

Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

This unusual historical novel from writing duo Gaynor and Webb uses the early years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign as the backdrop for the friendship and developing romance between Jack Devereaux, a young chef from New Orleans, and Olive Carter, an ambitious young journalist for the BBC. 

Searching for Shona by Margaret J. Anderson, a WWII evacuation story

Marjorie Malcolm-Scott leads a lonely but privileged existence in Edinburgh, living with her Uncle Fergus, who has been gone for months (war work?) and his disagreeable housekeeper, Mrs. Kilpatrick. Sometimes when she is sent outdoors to play, she goes to the local park and observes the rough and tumble orphans from St. Anne’s. 

The House at Mermaid's Cove by Lindsay Jayne Ashford - a WWII historical set in Cornwall

Sometimes a book is so annoying one cannot sit back and enjoy the setting, even when it turns out to have been inspired by a place one has visited. I don’t think my friend Cath recommended this historical novel set in 1943 Cornwall but I wish she had read it so we could critique it together. The heroine, Alice, is an Irish nun, sent back in disgrace from the Belgian Congo because she became too attached to orphaned twins whose lives she saved. I suppose that is plausible but surely her superior, Sister Clare, knew that the war made traveling dangerous? So, surprise, Alice’s ship to Ireland is torpedoed in the English Channel and she washes up on shore where she is found by a TDS*.

Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen

Ellie Endicott is stunned when her husband of 30 years tells her he wants a divorce to marry a “smart, pleasant,” much younger colleague. Once she has recovered from her shock and humiliation, she admits – to herself, at least – that she didn’t love him. As Ellie wonders what is next for her, Mavis, her cleaning lady, persuades her to consult a solicitor: