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kats05 's review for:
The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson
Those who know me are aware that I'm not the greatest fan of fiction set in or around war, but I enjoyed The Summer Before War even if it was all terribly predictable. I'd say there were a lot more "during the war parts" than "before war" parts, and astonishingly I liked the former ones better. Even though I ended up crying during a particularly sad and touching good-bye scene on France's battlefields (clearly designed to have the readers in tears).
Helen Simonson's second novel is not as charming and delightful as Major Pettigrew was, but the characters of Rye grew on me (once I got over the fact that it read like a "Downton Abbey" shtick with upstairs/downstairs clichés in rural England), but what I particularly loved was a literary visit to Rye itself, a gorgeous town in East Sussex that I visited a number of times when I was working further along the coast, but I've not been to for over ten years now. Such a picturesque place, and I could easily visualise Beatrice Nash on her bicycle and Hugh Grange walking down the high street.
Helen Simonson's second novel is not as charming and delightful as Major Pettigrew was, but the characters of Rye grew on me (once I got over the fact that it read like a "Downton Abbey" shtick with upstairs/downstairs clichés in rural England), but what I particularly loved was a literary visit to Rye itself, a gorgeous town in East Sussex that I visited a number of times when I was working further along the coast, but I've not been to for over ten years now. Such a picturesque place, and I could easily visualise Beatrice Nash on her bicycle and Hugh Grange walking down the high street.