Skip to main content

Featured

A Little Place in Prague by Julie Caplin #Review #RomanyicEscapesBook12

    Today I am delighted to be featuring the twelfth in Julie Caplin's Romantic Escapes series : A Little Place in Prague.  It was published  by One More Chapter on October 24th.   It's been years since Anna has seen Leo Knight. And of all the apartments in all the cities in all the world, he just happens to walk in to her cosy new attic home – as her new housemate. As the two walk the cobbled streets of Prague, taking in the sights and sounds from Wenceslas Square, frosted with snow, to the soft glow of candlelit Charles Bridge, the enchantment of the City of a Hundred Spires soon starts to work its magic on them…   My Thoughts After you have read this book, you will certainly feel that you have visited Prague. The level of detail about everyday life there and the descriptions of the different places around the city certainly conjures up the atmosphere of the place. You can really sense how Anna and Leo come to love living there. It also has a lovely wintry feel, just

A Dangerous Act of Kindness by L P Fergusson #Author Post #Review



















I am happy to welcome LP Fergusson to the blog today to talk about some of the issues in the background of her latest historical novel, A Dangerous Act of Kindness

What would you risk for a complete stranger?


When widow Millie Sanger finds injured enemy pilot Lukas Schiller on her farm, the distant war is suddenly at her doorstep. Compassionate Millie knows he’ll be killed if discovered, and makes the dangerous decision to offer him shelter from the storm.
On opposite sides of the inescapable conflict, the two strangers forge an unexpected and passionate bond. But as the snow thaws, the relentless fury of World War Two forces them apart, leaving only the haunting memories of what they shared, and an understanding that their secret must never see light.

As Millie’s dangerous act of kindness sets them on paths they never could have expected, those closest to them become their greatest threats, and the consequences of compassion prove deadly…

A Dangerous Act of Kindness is a beautiful, harrowing love story, perfect for fans of Rachel Hore and Santa Montefiore


Welcome to the blog!
What would you risk for a complete stranger? by L P Ferguson



A Dangerous Act of Kindness is the story of a lonely young widow who finds an injured German pilot on her remote farm in England at the beginning of the Second World War. She makes the fateful decision to help him. At the planning stage, I wanted to test how plausible my story was. I asked a number of people, ‘Would you have helped an injured German during the war?’ The men usually said no. The women invariably said yes.

During my research I noticed a great difference in attitudes to collaboration in England compared to the Continent. At the end of the war, women accused of collaboration with the Germans had their heads brutally shaved in public. They were beaten and mocked. Some prostitutes in Paris were kicked to death for taking German soldiers as clients. Interestingly, the head-shavers were not generally resistance fighters; often they were petty collaborators themselves. ‘Collaboration horizontale’ was not the only crime. One woman was shaved and beaten for working as a cleaner in a German military establishment.

The British had a very different attitude, most significantly because England was never invaded during WW2. Churchill’s private secretary, sickened by what he saw in France as the end of the war, said, ‘While disgusted by this cruelty, I reflected that we British had known no invasion or occupation for some 900 years. So we were not the best judges.’

In Britain it was against the law to fraternize with an enemy soldier. At first, German prisoners excited no sympathy from the public. Most were sent to Canada or Australia to prevent the rise of a ‘fifth column’, should the country be invaded. When that threat lessened, the Germans were kept in Britain and worked on the land.

Slowly they earned the respect of the farmers. They had a strong work ethic, and were trustworthy and courteous. One Land Army girl noticed the young Germans cleaning their hands on the wet grass before they ate their lunch and reflected that an ordinary farm worker would not have done that. 

Tensions still existed – in 1944, German prisoners at Crewe Hall made beautiful and ingenious toys for distribution to the local children at Christmas but the War Office had them burned. When the war ended, there was a dramatic rise in public hostility.

But gradually people began to switch from wishing the POWs ill because they were enemies to wishing them well because they were men. Individual acts of kindness from both sides started to heal the deeper wounds of war.

Non-fraternization ended just before Christmas in 1946. Queues of cars formed outside the camps to take home an unknown guest to share Christmas round the family table. At a vicarage in Nottinghamshire, four German prisoners were invited. One of them, a father of five, broke down and sobbed when he saw the white tablecloth. He was almost too overcome to eat.

There is little doubt from all I’ve read that women were at the vanguard of reconciliation between the countries. How could a woman see another mother’s son, lonely, miserable and far from home and not want to make contact? And how could a young widow, finding an injured pilot in her barn, not reach out a hand of kindness and help him?


My Thoughts

This novel drips with authenticity and you feel that all the period details are spot on. With the exception of Hugh, I felt that all the characters were sympathetic and credible. In particular, you feel for Millie and Lukas and appreciate their loneliness. It is interesting to see the conflict through the eyes people from different sides and to realise that they are not that different at all. 
    Millie's farm seems to be the focus for people who are displaced and it offers a degree of security to the evacuees and the farm workers. It really does feel like a separate bubble. I can thoroughly recommend this book if you enjoy reading stories set in the Second World War and there is a depth to the emotions which carries you along.

In short: An emotional read which captures the spirit of the era.

About the Author


LP Fergusson grew up on the borders of Wales in a Tudor house on the banks of  the River Wye. As a child she longed to go back in history. Now she does, through her writing. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Oxford Brookes University and won the Blackwell’s Prize for MA Creative Writing. Her stories have made a number of shortlists for competitions run by the Orwell Society, Oxfordshire Libraries and Flash500. Her psychological thriller reached the final three of Quercus/Psychologies Thriller competition and her wartime novel A Dangerous Act of Kindness was Highly Commended in the Caledonia Novel Award 2018. She edits the historical blog With Love from Graz which was featured on BBC Radio Wales, Radio 2 and BBC4’s A Very British Romance with Lucy Worsley. She now lives in an Oxfordshire village beneath the chalk downs where her debut novel is set.

You can follow her here: Twitter 

Book links: Amazon UK  |  Kobo UK   |  Google UK   |  Apple Books UK

Thanks to LP Fergusson and Ellie Pilcher of Canelo  for a copy of the book and a place on the tour. 


                                                         Check out the rest of the tour!



Comments