Sarah Mitchell

I read a lot of historical fiction based on World War II so it always surprises me when an author gives us a different perspective. This novel is based after the war in England and looks at how life in a small town has been affected. This is a well-written dual time line novel that is based on true facts.

1946 - Norfolk England. In this quiet part of England, the government decided to create a camp for German prisoners of war to help remove the barbed wire and mines from the beach. The people of the village were angered by this - many of them lost their loved ones during the war and didn't want Germans in their town as a reminder. Fran lived with her sister June and her parents and had lost a brother during the war. Her sister hates the Germans and wants nothing to do with them, while Fran is more forgiving and goes to work at the camp as a secretary. When Fran first sees Thomas, one of the prisoners, she is aware of his blue eyes that seemed to see into her soul. She and Thomas fall in love but know that they have to keep it hidden because there was a law about fraternizing with the enemy. Thomas makes plans to stay in England after the war but they aren't sure how to accomplish this goal. He gets repatriated back to Germany and has to decide if he will look for his family at home or stay in England with his love. There is also a dual story line in this time period of the camp commander who is suffering from what we would now call PTSD and how his wife deals with it.

1989 - Berlin. Tiffany arrives in Berlin as the wall is coming done opening up the ability to travel to east Germany. She is Fran's granddaughter and is on a mission to find someone from the past. The 1989 part of the novel brackets the 1946 section and provides closure to the story of Fran and Thomas.

This is an interesting look at the trauma that many soldiers face when they go home after war. There is also a look at the way a person is treated by the people in town for not being able to fight due to health issues. This sweeping story looks at the power of hope and love after a war. Several parts of the book had me checking Google to see if they really happened. One of the most interesting was that the people of the area were encouraged by their church to invite a German prisoner to Christmas dinner and that many of the English families did open their homes. It showed the goal of many people to create peace after the long war.

Overall, this was a well written look at love and hope, family, and the effects of war on both the soldiers and their families. I am going to read some of the earlier books by this author.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review.… (más)

Please note that I received this ARC for free from NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

Good grief, I don't know what to start with here. There was just too much going on. It didn't help that the author jumped back to the present and then 5 years before every every chapter. We are following our main character Claire's current engagement to a man named Angus and then her university romance with a guy named Dan. If you wanted to know about either guy, there's not much there. We just know that Clarie is still obsessing over Dan and where things went wrong, apparently went into a funk after the relationship ended and seems to be ambivalent (at best) about Angus. Things go to the weird where quickly where Claire meets a man who reminds her of Dan. And then it's just Claire running to and fro looking into something that made a little bit of sense at the end of the book.

"The Couple" starts with Claire's engagement party to a man named Angus. Her family is pretty relieved that she has moved on from someone named Dan. FYI, it takes a while to even get to Dan and why Claire was so hung up on him. Claire works for the Home Office and deals with immigrant cases. We know she has a mother, stepfather, and brother, but she doesn't talk to them much, she is just telling you about them. Same with Angus. I didn't get a good sense of him via Claire. Same issue with Claire obsessing about the man she meets (Mark) and her former boyfriend (Dan). She just runs around and says, well this person reminds me of Dan and I am now going to just run around and force this person to be with me, when I am not hiding it from my fiancee and trying to make things work there. This book was confusing. At least Mitchell didn't do the unreliable narrator thing (which I loathe). I think the big issue is that Claire is written inconsistently in this book. I don't know what she really wanted in the end. And then all of a sudden we get some huge reveal about things and I maybe squawked plot hole a few dozen times and let it go.

The men were a mess in this book. We don't spend much time with anyone but the perfect Dan and good lord I didn't get it. You have to make him some big perfect love. Or something. Mitchell messes with his halo a bit, but then we don't get to see how things ended. We just get comments here and there and the rest is left to you to imagine.

The writing feels really disconnected at times. Claire works at the Home Office and apparently deals with immigrant cases. Anytime Mitchell goes into whatever case Claire is working on the book gets odd. You have the idea that maybe Claire looks down on these people at times, or she doesn't really care (which I still say she doesn't) and all these cases just hang in the book. The flow is impacted by going from the present to five years ago. I just ceased to give a crap about Dan. Claire's obsession with him and his dealing with his ex got old fast. She was just a mess as the ex was in my opinion. That opinion isn't helped by the fact that though Mitchell over explains everything in this book, she decides to keep what happened to Dan vague. I mean you can guess what happened, but I wish that the rest of the book was more like that in order for it to really hit you.

The book's setting is mostly Angus and Clarie's home with Claire occasionally going out to stalk Mark somewhere else.

The book ends in a whimper.… (más)

Wow! This is a book that, like some of my favorite movies, I really disliked at first but then couldn‰ÃƒÂ›Ã‚ªt stop thinking about it. I'm glad I didn't write this review immediately after finishing - I almost missed the "breathtaking twist" that the tagline mentioned. I had to mull it over for awhile, and once it hit me, I liked the book that much more. I LOVE when I get fooled.

I will hide the rest of the review because it contains a complete spoiler:

The timeline switches between "now" and "five years ago." In the present, Claire is an immigration lawyer in London, engaged to Angus and planning her wedding. But she‰Ûªs hesitant to move forward, haunted by the memory of the great love of her life, ex-boyfriend Daniel.

The chapters from five years ago describe how Daniel was being stalked by his psychotic ex-girlfriend, which ultimately resulted in his death. One of my issues with the book was that the two timelines seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Then it finally sunk in. Even though it's clearly spelled out towards the end, at first you don't get it: all of the chapters from the past are narrated by Julie, Daniel's new girlfriend - not Claire. Which means that the psycho-stalker-ex being described IS CLAIRE! [Okay, it's kind of a cheat. But it's totally fun; and the character of Julie IS introduced fairly early in the book so I give it a pass.]

So that explains why it‰Ûªs hard to warm up to Claire as a character - she‰Ûªs a nut. And this realization throws into question everything that came before. Obviously, Claire has reality issues. Some of the scenes have a surreal, almost dream-like quality. Did they really happen as she describes? Well, in her own words:

"Like I say, if somebody is lying about one element of their story the chances are the rest is made-up too."

"The almost-truth can be very plausible indeed."

"The trick is to believe the story yourself."

According to Claire, she was torn between her fianc̩ and Mark, the man who sold them his house.
It seems that she was powerfully drawn to Mark because he reminded her so strongly of Daniel. But then - so she says - she discovers that Angus and Mark were involved in a convoluted scheme of blackmail, corruption, and the terrible exploitation of female immigrants. They were conspiring together, lying to her and using her. Like Daniel, both of these men end up dead.

At the very end, a new man is introduced, and - uh oh! - he reminds Claire powerfully of Daniel. I fear this character is a goner.

(I suggest that if you haven‰Ûªt read the book but are interested in it, don‰Ûªt read too many of the reviews or comments beforehand. At some point you will read something that will probably spoil the ending for you, and that would be a shame! PS, Based on some of the reviews I read, I think I'm not the only one who almost - or completely - missed the twist.)… (más)

Please see all of my reviews on my blog at www.robinlovesreading.blogspot.com.

During the present day in Canada, Martha's father has died, and she and her sister discovered that he had intended to travel to England, after not having set foot there in over seventy years. There is a stack of curious letters and proof that he booked a hotel and rented a beach hut there. Also, Martha's daughter Janey is attending school in England. For those two reasons, Martha finds herself on a plane. Between her curiosity about her father and the fact that her relationship with her daughter is quite difficult, these travel plans are a must. It does not take Martha long to begin to piece together her father's past, and she learns so much about the war through these facts. However, it does take quite some time to settle the rift between herself and her daughter.

In 1940s Norfolk, England, Sylvie's husband has gone to war, leaving her with two children to raise alone. She has just discovered that she was willed a beach house near her parents' home and develop a strong friendship with Connie, a woman she met on the beach. Secrets are shared, and lives are forever changed.

The Lost Letters had a bit of a slow start for me. But with the plan that Sylvie and Connie set in motion seeming quite risky, and the history of how war affected the lives of the innocent, well, it was quite touching. Martha's putting these pieces together drew me right into the story. The mystery and questions that I as a reader needed answers to were handled quite satisfactorily by the conclusion of this engaging story. A fabulous start for a debut author.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion.… (más)