Filed under: B Reviews, B Reviews Category, Reviews
Dear Ms. McKendrick,
I’ve been delighted with your previous books (written as Morag McKendrick Pippin) set in and right before WWII, such a little used era of history. Your integration of historical facts with plots different from almost any others I’ve read stand out the mass of generic regencies that the Powers that Be seem to think is all we historical romance fans want to read. Brava.
Englishwoman Sophie de Havilland fled her homeland after discovering the unsavory truth about her long-time fiance, a truth known but covered up by her parents. Now after having lived in late 1930s Germany for two years with her aunt, who had married a German baron, Sophie is learning some hard truths about this wonder society which she had admired for pulling the country out of the wreck which followed WWI. Time catches up with her aunt and war is declared before she can flee the country. Sophie has to turn to a predatory SS officer to help smuggle Aunt Augusta out of the reach of the Reich. But as Sophie learns, he demands tit for tat and she’s forced to move in …
I enjoyed your first novel, Blood Moon Over Bengal last year and have been looking forward to what you’d write about next. I’m glad to say this one is just as good if not better. I think the war time setting is great and well done. You again use lots of slang and throws in day to day details which really add to the story’s historical “feel” but, and here’s a little niggle, once again, it’s almost too much, especially in the first third of the book. It does tone down somewhat once the trip to Cornwall begins but it’s almost as if you wrote the story first then went back and tried to insert as much of this as possible. At times it felt a wee bit awkward. For instance, you refer to stoves as “Agas” which I think I remember is a brand name. I could see doing that a time or two but afterwards, I think you should have stuck with using “stove.” I mean, how many times do I say to myself, “got to remember to clean/turn on/turn off the Kenmore?” …
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