Book Synopsis:
Estelle is the headstrong daughter of Fleur, a Resistance legend who disappeared during the Great War, supposedly killed while helping Allied soldiers to escape.
Christa, an only child, longs to break free from the constraints of London suburbia, and fantasises about the ethereal Belgian heroine who saved her father.
When Estelle comes looking for the truth about the mother she believes deserted her, an intense friendship grows between the two young women. Estelle invites Christa to De Eikenhoeve, her family’s idyllic country estate. There, Christa encounters Estelle’s two brothers – brooding, tempestuous Robbe and dependable, golden-haired Pieter – and during that long hot summer, passions run high. When war breaks out Christa is forced to return home, but not before she has done something she will regret for the rest of her life.
Christa arrives back in England a changed woman, while Estelle decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps and join the Resistance. Little do they dream that Fleur was betrayed by someone close to them, and that the legacy of this betrayal will have heartbreaking consequences for them all.
The Hour Of Separation is available in ebook and hardback now. You can purchase a copy of both here.
My Review:
I’m a huge fan of Katharine McMahon and have read pretty much all her books so you can imagine my excitement when I was offered a copy of her latest book, The Hour Of Separation. I might have mentioned it once if twice but I love historical fiction especially when it’s set in or around world war two so this book was a win win for me!
Katharine has a great way of fully immersing the reader into her story so you feel transported to 1939 in Belgium. I could really imagine the beautiful countryside and feel the fear and unease set in as the German occupiers start to make themselves known.
The story is told from the point of view of both Christa and Estelle which gives the reader a more intimate view of the story as we are privy to the girls individual thoughts and feelings. The two storylines are written quite differently which reflects their different personalities very well. I started to feel like I knew them both personally so felt more invested in the story and more concerned with what would happen next.
This was quite a fast read for me and I felt gripped from the start with the need to unravel the girls and their families secrets. I’ve always had a special interest in the resistance work in world war two and all the brave men and women who worked together to try to sabotage the Germans. I enjoyed learning more about their activities in Belgium under German occupation and the important work they did to help the allies.
Huge thanks to Rebecca Grey and W&N publishers for my copy of this book. If you like gripping WW2 fiction based on real events you’ll love this book!
About The Author:
Born in north-west London, Katharine studied English and Drama at Bristol University because she wanted either to act or to write. She wrote her first novel in a gap year following university and spent a couple of years teaching in a Hertfordshire comprehensive school. Thus began a career in which her writing has been fed by a hugely diverse range of other activities, which have in turn been fuelled by her writing. Katharine has had a job taking breakdown calls at the RAC, run a volunteer bureau, tutored writing skills with the Royal Literary Fund in the universities of Hertfordshire and Warwick, trained as a magistrate, and in turn written training courses for magistrates and has served on the Sentencing Council of England and Wales, and the Judicial Appointments Commission. She has run the Guardian Masterclass on Historical Fiction and written an e-book to complement that work. She has just been appointed as Education Projects Manager by the Royal Literary Fund, where her role will be to help develop a wide range of projects in which writers can use their unique skills in all kinds of different communities.
This diversity is reflected in the lives and adventures of her characters. Evelyn Gifford, the heroine of The Crimson Rooms and its sequel, The Woman in the Picture, though born at the end of the nineteenth century, is a thoroughly modern woman in the way that her career and her domestic life collide – sometimes to the detriment, usually to the advantage of both. In writing these books, Katharine found herself immersed in a world in which Evelyn is deeply engaged both with personal relationships and professional crises. This, Katharine believes, is typical of the richness of experience enjoyed and bemoaned by many modern women.
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