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Winter Wishes for the Home Front Nurses by Rachel Brimble #Review

  In the midst of the Second World War we follow the lives of the Home Front Nurses. Winter Wishes for the Home Front Nurses by Rachel Brimble was published on August 4th by Boldwood Books .  Winter, 1942. Secrets abound for the Home Front Nurses, but will one of them be able to tell the truth about her past before Christmas? As the weather turns cold, and the war rages on, Veronica Campbell finds herself loving her job as a home front nurse more than ever. She’s spending time with her beloved best friends Sylvia and Freda, as well as assisting on life-saving operations with her fellow nurse Betty Wilson, and feeling valued and happy. But at home, she wishes things were different. Because even cosied up by the fireside of her lovely little house, there’s a man who lives on her street. Someone she’d once thought she could trust, who – five years ago – had violently attacked her. His threats to her remain, but she’s been terrified into silence. But everything changes ...

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane #Review


I’m really excited to be on the blog tour for ASK AGAIN, YES, by Mary Beth Keane. This gorgeous, lyrical book is a Radio 2 Book Club pick for the autumn. Here's how it has been described:

 ‘a must-read for our time’ 
                  Lisa Taddeo (Three Women 

‘a powerful and moving novel [from] a writer of extraordinary depth, feeling and wit.’              
                  Meg Wolitzer (The Female Protagonist, The Wife)          


A profoundly moving novel about two neighbouring families in suburban New York, the friendship between their children, and a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, to read the book is to love it, and it’s going to be an essential read this summer.

Gillam, a quiet suburb in upstate New York is a town of ordinary, big-lawned houses, a leafy settling ground for young families moving out of the city. 

The Gleesons have recently moved there and soon welcome the Stanhopes as their new neighbours. Lonely Lena Gleeson hopes to find a friend in her neighbour, but Anne Stanhope – cold, elegant, unstable – wants to be left alone. It’s up to their children – Kate and Peter, who are born six months apart – to find their way to one another. Then, when Kate and Peter, a violent event divides the neighbours, and the children are forbidden to have any contact.

Is it possible to continue a friendship whose resilience and love has been almost broken by the fault line dividing both families, and by the terrible, tragic incident that has engulfed them all?

My Thoughts

There are so many layers in this novel where horrifying events are described in its quiet, understated style. It covers the generations in two families but we mainly see the story through Peter and Kate's eyes. Beneath the quiet, suburban lives there are debilitating issues of unexplained violence, self destruction, blame and guilt. Is it possible to move on with a clean slate, or will the past always have an impact on each subsequent generation?

    The characters in this novel are fairly unremarkable in themselves but it is past events which single them out. You get to see them with all their flaws and also their strengths as family ties prove unbreakable. There is a poignancy as they struggle with the need to understand the past. Can they move past blame and guilt, to understand and forgive human frailty? It is a powerful read which resonates after the last word has been read. 

In short: Full of hope and despair, a family drama unfolds.

About the Author

MARY BETH KEANE is the author of The Walking People, Fever and Ask Again, Yes. In 2011, she was named one of the National Book Foundation’s ‘5 under 35,’ and in 2015 she was awarded a John S. Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing. Her previous novel, Fever, is in development with BBC America (Killing Eve) with Elisabeth Moss producing/starring as Typhoid Mary, and with the scriptwriter for Mad Men attached. Producers Bruce Cohen (America Beauty, Silver Linings Playbook) and Scott Delman (Book of Mormon), have optioned rights for Ask Again Yes. Mary Beth currently lives in Pearl River, New York, with her husband and their two sons. 

You can follow Mary Beth here: Twitter   |  Website  |  Facebook 
                                                  |  Instagram

Book links: Amazon UK   |  Waterstones   |  Amazon US  
                 |  Barnes and Noble   |  Apple iTunes   |  Indiebound  

Thanks to Mary Beth Keane, and Sriya Varadharajan of Michael Joseph for a copy of the book and a place on the tour. 

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