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joabroda 's review for:
The Summer Before the War
by Helen Simonson
emotional
funny
informative
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
A wonderful tale of a lost generation, the older folk stuck in an era and the young whose world will change over the course of the years to come.
The year is 1914, the setting the village of Rye, a costal village of England.
Beatrice Nash, a strong woman in a time where that was unladylike, comes to begin her life as a Latin teacher. Hugh Grange, a medical student, who has come on his usual summer escape from London, to visit his Aunt Agatha (another strong woman, though she conceals it beneath the guise of the perfect English lady).
It is the summer before the war and these 3 people and more make up a cast of characters facing the onslaught a war they mightily try to deny, even as a host of Belgian refugees are dropped at their doorstep.
Helen Simonson has the talent to draw you into her characters and you develop the love/hate relationships that a steady reader always seems to embrace with an excellent book.
Highly recommend for HF fans
The year is 1914, the setting the village of Rye, a costal village of England.
Beatrice Nash, a strong woman in a time where that was unladylike, comes to begin her life as a Latin teacher. Hugh Grange, a medical student, who has come on his usual summer escape from London, to visit his Aunt Agatha (another strong woman, though she conceals it beneath the guise of the perfect English lady).
It is the summer before the war and these 3 people and more make up a cast of characters facing the onslaught a war they mightily try to deny, even as a host of Belgian refugees are dropped at their doorstep.
Helen Simonson has the talent to draw you into her characters and you develop the love/hate relationships that a steady reader always seems to embrace with an excellent book.
Highly recommend for HF fans