A review by amtru
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

3.0

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley. I didn't find this book to be the effortless joy I had while reading Major Pettigrew. It's mostly solid (if a bit "Jane Austen during wartime") and has some lovely moments, but the story meanders quite a bit and the narrator shifts I found to be abrupt and not always that useful to the story. There are also so many ancillary characters I couldn't remember who a couple of them were when they popped back into the action. Everything ends up as it should in the end, of course, but I wanted to enjoy the journey a little bit more.