For fans of Kristin Harmel and Martha Hall Kelly's “The Lilac Girls”, the bestselling author of “The Piano Maker” returns with a vivid, atmospheric, and deeply moving novel set during the last days of WWII.
An emotional and powerful story about unwavering friendship, featuring an independent, graceful, and courageous young woman.
London, 1944: Kate Henderson is an energetic and spirited twenty-four-year-old. A trained paramedic and ambulance driver, she is doing her part to contribute on the home front as war stretches on.
Kate does her work fearlessly but underneath her determination, she's wrestling with grief after witnessing the stabbing death of her diplomat father seven years earlier. Her father's murder was never properly investigated, and it remains unsolved.
Her life is drastically interrupted once more when she wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of the air raid alarm and the terror whistles of a bomb's stabilizers screaming toward the roof of her house. Her beloved mother, Mary, and her aunt, Catrina, die instantly. Kate is badly injured and traumatized to her core.
Weeks pass and Kate doesn't know how to carry on or where to go. Claire Giroux, a kind doctor, convinces Kate to live with her as she recuperates. This unlikely arrangement sustains them both for a while. But the safety of their domestic life is shattered when Claire's husband Thomas returns from the front. He becomes violent, viciously and repeatedly lashing out at them both, and it soon becomes apparent that they will have to start their lives over once again.
