An authentic story of love and war vividly detailed.
Saxberg’s historical novel explores love and redemption against the backdrop of the European Theater in WWII.
The leads are the Canadian Ardagh “Harp” Cadieu and the Dutch woman Jacoba “Koos” van den Berg. Ardagh is from Northern Ontario, on Lake Superior, and he has suffered two tragic events in his young life—events where people died—and he carries that burden. In fact, that’s the main reason he enlists in the Canadian army. He hopes to escape his little town and to somehow assuage his guilt and cleanse his soul. When we meet 15-year-old Koos, it’s early in the war. Her small Dutch town will soon be occupied by the Nazis, and she’s chafing under her parents’ protective concern for her. When the Germans come, she joins the resistance in a dangerous balancing act, even leading on a young Nazi lieutenant and falling half in love with him after having had a crush on a neighbor boy who joins the Dutch SS. Meanwhile, Ardagh is training—endlessly, it seems—in England. He does get smuggled aboard his brother Hank’s Lancaster bomber and gets a taste of war. Landing in Normandy in ’44, he and his company fight their way across northern Europe and eventually liberate the small town where Koos lives. And, of course, these two young people, so often disappointed and frustrated, fall deeply in love. Will they find happiness? Will Koos become a war bride, starting a new life with her husband in Canada? And will Ardagh finally exorcise his guilt and gain the confidence he desperately needs?
This is a historical novel but not quite like the usual ones where fictional characters live their lives in the shadow of real history—and the major figures of the times appear in cameo roles. In fact, there are no “major” figures here at all. Instead, Saxberg has based the story on the tales of WWII and the Lake Superior Regiment that he grew up hearing about, specifically through the stories of his three great uncles, Ardagh, Gerald, and Wilf. So, thanks to a complete annotated list of characters at the back of the book, we learn that Harp, Hank, and Koos (and others), were, in fact, real people who figured in Saxberg family stories. Some characters were purely fictional, and others were inspired by real people or were even composites. And Saxberg confesses to also manipulating and rearranging the personal stories. It’s a look into how such a book is put together and a very clever mishmash; and incidentally, it’s a wonderful tribute to real enlistees: farmers, fishers, tradespeople, laborers, who signed up when needed, some of whom gave their lives. As one character says, “Every death was etched in the background of each success.” Saxberg’s theme is that we should carry with us the memories of our loved ones and that those memories somehow keep them alive. Not a novel idea, but one worth being reminded of from time to time. There are also helpful maps of battle sites.
An authentic story of love and war vividly detailed.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781068915406
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Reimagined Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.
A travel writer has one last shot at reconnecting with the best friend she just might be in love with.
Poppy and Alex couldn't be more different. She loves wearing bright colors while he prefers khakis and a T-shirt. She likes just about everything while he’s a bit more discerning. And yet, their opposites-attract friendship works because they love each other…in a totally platonic way. Probably. Even though they have their own separate lives (Poppy lives in New York City and is a travel writer with a popular Instagram account; Alex is a high school teacher in their tiny Ohio hometown), they still manage to get together each summer for one fabulous vacation. They grow closer every year, but Poppy doesn’t let herself linger on her feelings for Alex—she doesn’t want to ruin their friendship or the way she can be fully herself with him. They continue to date other people, even bringing their serious partners on their summer vacations…but then, after a falling-out, they stop speaking. When Poppy finds herself facing a serious bout of ennui, unhappy with her glamorous job and the life she’s been dreaming of forever, she thinks back to the last time she was truly happy: her last vacation with Alex. And so, though they haven’t spoken in two years, she asks him to take another vacation with her. She’s determined to bridge the gap that’s formed between them and become best friends again, but to do that, she’ll have to be honest with Alex—and herself—about her true feelings. In chapters that jump around in time, Henry shows readers the progression (and dissolution) of Poppy and Alex’s friendship. Their slow-burn love story hits on beloved romance tropes (such as there unexpectedly being only one bed on the reconciliation trip Poppy plans) while still feeling entirely fresh. Henry’s biggest strength is in the sparkling, often laugh-out-loud-funny dialogue, particularly the banter-filled conversations between Poppy and Alex. But there’s depth to the story, too—Poppy’s feeling of dissatisfaction with a life that should be making her happy as well as her unresolved feelings toward the difficult parts of her childhood make her a sympathetic and relatable character. The end result is a story that pays homage to classic romantic comedies while having a point of view all its own.
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0675-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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