A tale of a remarkable life that, at its best, makes for gripping drama.
A historical novel that dramatizes the life of Virginia Hall, an American woman who worked for British intelligence during World War II.
Virginia takes a vacation in Italy with three other women—her sibling, Rebecca; her best friend, Amy; and a teacher, Barbara, who’s the oldest of the group. The latter two have organized the trip to find a suitor for Rebecca and wrest her away from her fiance, Thomas, about whom no one is particularly enthusiastic. It’s 1939, and Virginia is disturbed by the banners she sees extolling Mussolini and Hitler, the fascist political rallies, and violence in the streets. After speaking to a poor young girl with an infant daughter—a Tunisian who suffers under French colonial rule—Virginia impetuously decides to head to Tunisia with her friends to find a way to ease the anguish there. However, their group is kidnapped by slave traders, and Virginia is the victim of repeated sexual assault. The women are finally rescued, but during a brutal trek across the Sahara on camelback, they’re attacked by a sniper. Rebecca and Virginia are both shot; one is killed, and the other terribly injured. Meanwhile, Jamil, the slave trader responsible for their kidnapping, aims to recapture them with the help of his powerful friends. Crepeau’s historical research is impeccable over the course of this novel; she not only captures the minute details of Virginia’s life, but also the turbulent political climate of the time—including the United Kingdom’s participation in the French Resistance, an oft-neglected subject. She vividly portrays the transformation of a young socialite into a person of great substance; Virginia eventually accepts a position organizing resistance groups in France on behalf of the British government. The pace can feel lumbering at times; the story begins very slowly and dwells too long on the quest to find Rebecca a new suitor. The author’s prose is lucid but sometimes infelicitous: “She was the spoiled, selfless sister that orchestrated the adventure of a lifetime before she gave in to the wishes of her sister.” However, Virginia’s unique story remains genuinely compelling, nonetheless.
A tale of a remarkable life that, at its best, makes for gripping drama.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 277
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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