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Summary
Summary
A hugely poignant and emotional love story set in 1950s and 1960s England and Scotland. In the early summer of 1954, young George West, qualified as an architect but completing his national service, meets 17 year old Josella Grace, daughter of a retired Colonel. He falls passionately in love with this reserved but beautiful girl ? a love that seems destined never to be fulfilled. Their story, and its dark secrets, alternates between George's tale of first love in 1954 and Josella's bittersweet perspective, a decade later in 1964, of the difficulties of her relationships. Their unique voices chart the anguish, tragedy and despair, as their lives are led apart, without hope of a happy reunion.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Part romance and part character study, Harrod-Eagles's very British tale evokes a time chronologically close to, but startlingly different from, our own with nary an anachronism. In 1954, George West glimpses a beautiful 17-year-old girl on horseback over the Dorset Downs. Josella Grace, he learns, has background, brains and beauty-but also emotional scars from a mysterious childhood. George accepts a decade of Jo's brief and unpredictable visits without complaint while creating a stable (if otherwise abstinent) life. Jo is blithely rootless, renaming and reinventing herself-as a temporary London switchboard operator, the gofer for an Edinburgh theatrical troupe and the lover of a brooding boatbuilder-until several painful episodes reveal both her essential loneliness and her abiding love for George. Though deftly portrayed and counterpointed, neither George's passivity nor Jo's promiscuity creates much narrative drive. The cause of Jo's skittishness, when finally revealed, may also feel flat or old-fashioned to contemporary readers used to novels hinged on lurid traumas. Still, Harrod-Eagles (Julia) captures an unusual personality and a complex period beautifully. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Award-winning author Harrod-Eagles once again turns her substantial talents to a period romance--this time with a suspenseful twist--and creates vivid characters, an enthralling plot, and realistic ambience. It's the early 1950s, and Britain is still recovering from World War II. George West--ambitious, university-educated, and determined to overcome his working-class background--is finishing his stint in the National Service when he meets 17-year-old Josella Grace. He immediately falls in love with the beautiful, spirited young girl; even the discovery that she is the daughter of his regimental commander, the daunting Colonel Grace, can't dent George's adoration. He would like nothing better than to marry Jo, even though there is an element of dark mysteriousness about her character that he can't penetrate. Jo refuses to settle down, preferring to wander Britain, living like a gypsy. Then, in a shocking revelation, Colonel Grace imparts a terrible secret about Jo's past. Moving between 1954, when George first meets Jo, and 1964, when the tale reaches a shattering climax, this dramatic, taut, and gripping romance is real treat for Harrod-Eagles fans old and new. --Emily Melton Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
This enjoyable historical novel is narrated in turn by George West and Josella Grace, the 17-year-old daughter of his regiment's retired colonel. The story moves from our protagonists' initial meeting in the spring of 1954 to the resolution of their love story in 1964. By Chapter 2 (told from Josella's viewpoint a full decade after the events that George relates in Chapter 1), it becomes clear that something is keeping Josella from the man she loves. While the discerning reader will probably figure it out long before the novel's end, the characters are so engaging and their story so involving that the somewhat predictable "secret" does not detract from this entertaining love story. While this work is quite different from Harrod-Eagles's excellent Bill Slider mysteries, the author's fans will likely enjoy it, as will fans of Angela Thirkell and Rosamunde Pilcher. Recommended for popular fiction collections.-Elizabeth Mellett, Brookline P.L., MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.