The Heart Speaks Many Ways by Madeleine A. Polland – Reading Ireland Month 2025

In this coming of age story, with an admittedly sappy title, a lovely young woman learns to have confidence in herself and her decision-making rather than reacting to stronger personalities or tragedy.

Emily McRoss has been living in Spain for two years, being “finished” with family friends, Don Rafael and Dona Serafina, and their daughter Remedios, her own age. In the background of the relaxed life of the upper classes in Andalusia there is increasing unrest that will result in civil war.

Another Irish family, the Kilpatricks of Castle Keene, has a local connection. Lady Anna Kilpatrick has come to visit her Spanish grandmother and is attending a convent school with Emily and Remedios. Emily is a dreamy 17, barely aware of the handsome young men Remedios is constantly assessing as possible mates, until Remedios’ cousin, Alejandro, a handsome young Spaniard, catches her eye:

The girls around her were seething decorously, but never would she enter into competition, even with Remedios, by admitting the tremor that had run through her as those grave dark eyes across the width of the patio had unerringly picked out the only stranger in the company; a small pause in the glance, which was like a promise. And then he had smiled and was gone.

Their relationship consists mostly of meaningful glances so Emily is astonished to receive a letter from her mother and learns Alejandro has asked for her hand – without consulting her, as is the Spanish custom. Emily may be infatuated but she also has her pride and insists on being courted as she would be in 1930s Ireland. Alejandro radiates charm and sex appeal and it would take someone much more sophisticated than Emily to resist. Soon Dona Serafina is planning a wedding but the couple is separated by the violence of the Spanish Civil War, as Alejandro joins the military to save his country from the Republican government.

As war consumes Spain, Lady Anna’s father, Lord Keene, has come to bring his daughter safely back to Ireland and Emily goes with them. Once home, Emily is lonely, worried about Alejandro, and unable to focus on anything around her. Eventually, however, England is at war and, frustrated that she is again being left behind as the men in her life join the military, Emily enlists as a WAAF. This work is not easy and the conditions are primitive but Emily finally feels useful and less like an observer of her own life, although, of course, she is now enduring her second war and can only wait and hope for the men she cares about to survive.

This is a fascinating book, more than a historical romance, and impossible to put down. There are three distinct sections: Emily’s time in Spain, which has a suspended in time quality, despite the unrest of civil war; her return to Ireland as neither wife nor widow and slow realization that she has to assert herself in order to stop being an observer of her own life; and her time as a WAAF working on radar, based on Polland’s own experience during WWII. Nothing is predictable, which is part of the appeal of Polland’s writing, and a happy ending is in doubt as many of those the reader has come to care about are ruthlessly but realistically killed off. My favorite of her books is Sabrina but this one is close in terms of compelling storytelling and appealing characters, and eventually comes full circle.

Title: The Heart Speaks Many Ways
Author: Madeleine A. Polland
Publication: Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1982
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 20th century, Spain, Ireland, and England
Source: Personal copy

This is my sixth book for the 2025 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. I also chose it for Reading Ireland Month because Polland is my favorite Irish author.  She is known for her adult fiction as well as her children's books.  Other reviews of her books are available here.