With Labor Day upon us, it’s time to review and recap the books I’ve read this summer. Some from my June summer reading list for sure, but many others discovered along the way. Here’s a list of titles followed by notes on three recent reads, each one featuring strong women who served their countries during wartime.
MYSTERIES
Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner
The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
Something to Hide by Elizabeth George
HISTORICAL NOVELS
American Duchess by Karen Harper [Consuelo Vanderbilt & NY society]
Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly
The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis [Frick family & museum]
The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles
The Postmistress of Paris by Meg Waite Clayton
OTHER NOVELS
Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark. [set in Maine]
Haven Point by Virginia Hume [Maine colony]
The Midcoast by Adam White [Damariscotta, Maine]
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
One Night on the Island by Josie Silver
What Remains of Love by Susan Trauth
RECENT READING: LAFAYETTE, MITFORDS, & SNIPERS
Women Active in Wartime
The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray
Stephanie Dray specializes in long historical novels about fascinating women. Patsy Jefferson, the president’s daughter was one subject and Eliza Schuyler Hamilton another in a novel called My Dear Hamilton. I read and really enjoyed the latter one and was prompted by that to read The Women of Chateau Lafayette.
It’s set in three different time periods and focuses on three women, each of whom has a connection to Chateau de Chavaniac, Gilbert Lafayette’s home. While American schoolchildren learn early on that Lafayette was a key figure in the American Revolution, few, I would wager, have any idea of how active and dedicated his wife Adrienne was both to him and to the cause of liberty.
During WWI, American socialite Beatrice Chanler, trapped in marriage to politically connected wealthy Willie, surpasses him in her efforts for peace and American involvement in the war. She shuttled between Paris and Chavaniac to assist sick children being housed and cared for there.
Lastly, Marthe Simone, a French teacher and aspiring artist, becomes deeply involved in protecting and harboring children at Chavaniac during the 1940’s in Nazi-occupied France.
It’s clear from the author’s end note that she did prodigious amounts of research to re-create the lives of these three courageous women, their spouses, families, and friends. Adrienne Lafayette and Beatrice Chanler and some supporting characters were real people. It’s a riveting novel with much about the French Revolution I did not know! (~JWFarrington)
For Book Lovers
The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight
My blog readers know I’m a big fan of bookstores, particularly well curated independent ones. This novel about Nancy Mitford is set in London around WWII and in the present day. The bookstore in question, Heywood Hill, still exists today and is charming and inviting. It’s a place I frequented quite often when the Chief Penguin and I lived in London. During the war years, Nancy Mitford worked there and was invaluable in Heywood Hill becoming a literary salon and a haven for soldiers home on leave.
Based on Mitford and her wildly diverse and even infamous siblings, the novel brings to life Nancy’s layered life as novelist, aristocrat, and war volunteer. Unhappy and bereft in her marriage to Peter Rood, she enjoys a host of friendships with others of her class, writers including Evelyn Waugh, and an especially close relationship with Sophie Gordon (aka Iris), another war volunteer. All the while, she seeks someone to love her for herself.
Paired with Nancy’s story, is a contemporary story about young bibliophile Lucy St. Clair, on assignment to Heywood Hill from her job in the U. S. Lucy is a fan of Mitford’s writing and is determined to identify Mitford’s friend Iris.
The Nancy chapters are full of reflections on her pursuit of love and the notoriety brought about by her siblings. This is done partly through letters to a few friends. For me, they resulted in a portrait of a complex individual.
The Lucy chapters provide a framework for locating the fictional Iris and, while pleasant, are thin in comparison. Nonetheless, I found this an engaging and perceptive look at one slice of life in England from 1937 to 1945. (~JWFarrington)
Sharp Shooters
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
If you’re looking for a gripping, suspenseful historical novel about WWII, The Diamond Eye could be it! I’ve read and enjoyed several of Kate Quinn’s earlier novels, but this one really grabbed me. It’s the story of Mila Pavlichenko a Ukrainian woman who became a crack sniper for the Soviet Red Army. In battles against the Nazis, she logged more than 300 official kills! Working with a partner and later training and leading a small band of snipers, she gained a reputation and the nickname Lady Death.
The novel opens with her visit to Washington, DC to meet Eleanor Roosevelt and the president. She’s part of a delegation whose goal is to push the U.S. to enter the war. In flashbacks, the reader sees her in battle and learns about the precise calculations required to be successful in taking another human life.
But Mila was much more than her expertise and her heroics with a rifle. She was a book-loving woman and a mother who was studying to become a historian when she joined the army.
Quinn’s author’s note at the end explains her research, provides more detail about the principals, and shares where she has created fictional characters and situations. Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)
Note: The header photo of children reading books in little boats is a whimsical touch, source unknown.
