February Favorites

 Hall, Rachel Howzell.  The Last One.  Entangled Publishing, 3 December 2024.

This unputdownable fantasy begins when Kai wakes up not knowing who, or where she is, but she knows she's been assaulted because her attacker is still on top of her. Frustratingly, she must depend upon this attacker to find out who she is.

****

Heath, Sue.  The Secret Ingredient. One Last Chapter, 18 January 2024.

Kate is having a hard time recovering from her husband's death in a car accident.  Just over three years later, with the help of friends and neighbors, she begins to find herself again.  

****

MacDonald, Janice.  Victor and Me in Paris (An Imogene Durant Mystery).  Ravenstone, 15 November 2024.

Novelist and retired professor Imogene Durant rents an apartment in Paris to heal from her divorce and find inspiration for a new novel. She didn't expect to get involved in a murder investigation...

****

Simonson, Helen.  The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club.  

Spending the summer of 1919 as a companion to a rich, elderly woman would be more enjoyable for Constance if she weren't worried about how she'd survive when summer ended. Then she meets Poppy, who scandalously wears trousers and drives a motorcycle...

All's Fair...

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson (Random House hardcover, 22 March 2016).

I was enchanted by this story, which takes place in Rye, East Sussex, a town near the coast of England.  

The first people we meet are Hugh Grange, a medical student visiting his his aunt and uncle for the summer, his cousin Daniel Bookham, an aspiring poet, and their Aunt Agatha Kent.  The two young men had spent summers with Agatha and her husband John, a senior official in the Foreign Office. 

They are at once alarmed and in denial about the news that John has just sent Agatha from London:  there will most likely be a war.  Agatha Kent is also on tenterhooks because Beatrice Nash, the young woman who she's recommended for a teaching position at the local school, is to arrive that afternoon.  

This is still a time when female schoolteachers we not so common, especially teachers of Latin.  Even though the Equal Franchise Act, granting women over 21 the right to vote, had been passed in 1928, women were still considered inferior creatures. 

Beatrice Nash's desire to remain unmarried and independent still raised eyebrows amongst the gentry, especially in a relatively unsophisticated town like Rye.  It's considered quite revolutionary that she will be the school's Latin instructor, and Agatha anticipates opposition from some of the stodgier citizens, even though Beatrice has already been hired.

We are astonished, as always, by the eagerness of young men to enlist, and empathize with those who know how little glamour is involved but are unable to prevent them.  

Simonson completely immerses the reader in English country life at the brink of the First World War; it's truly as though one were there.  But despite the wretched circumstances, there is something lovely about this story, and one feels a sense of hope at its conclusion.



FTC Full Disclosure:  My sincere thanks to Library Journal for sending me an Advance Reading Copy of this novel.