A review by drrachrich
The Postcard by Leah Fleming

2.0

The Postcard seemed designed exactly to appeal to me with everything I love: family secrets, inter-generational stories, wartime romance, international travel, and a nonlinear story structure. The FANY! Female SOE agents! Lena Ashwell’s concert parties! Even the Scottish Women’s Hospitals got a name check. But I was so let down by the writing. I felt like I was reading someone’s first draft (not helped by the numerous typos throughout). The prose was clunky with no style or rhythm. I found the leaps in POV and perspective jarring. The narrative would go from a sweeping style covering a dozen years in one paragraph to describing the minutiae of everyday life in the next with no cues to the reader, which I found disorientating. A lot of the characterization was clumsily done; self-revelations told as internal dialogue with little to no build up. The historical details were obviously well-researched by inserted so artlessly I couldn’t enjoy them. And the love scenes were literally cringe worthy. It took me about 150 pages until I could ignore the style enough to read without constantly rolling my eyes. I found myself skimming over huge chunks just to get to the end, which I did (I give up on books very easily if I’m not enjoying them but I still found the story intriguing enough to want to know what happened), but I’m not sure it was worth it. I was really hoping to find another historical fiction author to enjoy, so I’m hugely disappointed.