HONEYMOON IN HELL

Against the restive, frightening background of fallen France, the bewilderment, the instability of the ex-patriates in Paris, the experiences of a very young bride, Anthea, are set. Anthea, at 16, had impulsively married a White Russian, and stays on in Paris; she finds she is pregnant and escapes to Bordeaux, where she has the baby and almost dies of puerperal fever; they return to German-occupied Paris which becomes untenable because of her English citizenship. She is arrested, escapes to Cannes, then Spain, then South America, through the Underground. Through these hazardous days she realises that she wants her freedom from Igor. Though the story stems from the author's own experiences, it has a quality of unreality, is insubstantial in characterization rather than in episode; carries a sense of mood rather than conviction.