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4.0 out of 5 starsA beautiful story spoilt by the typos.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2020
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I have read many of this author’s books and enjoyed them all. At the beginning of the book it was explained that this was written during lockdown and the fact that it has already been published shows how quickly it was all completed. I don’t know if that explains why there were so many typos - words missing, the wrong words and some words printed twice. Also grammatical errors. This did impact on my enjoyment of the book. Four or five within the first few pages meant that if the story hadn’t been quite so good I would have given up. Once one starts to see them it is difficult not to. Sometimes I had to read a sentence again to understand what it meant. Also the heroine, Emily, known affectionately as Emmy, was even referred to as Emma at one point. Such a shame.
5.0 out of 5 starsLovely companion novel to The Letter
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 August 2020
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Having enjoyed The Letter earlier this year I was delighted to see this companion novel was available. I loved it; Emmy and Alex’s tragic love story was heart rending, and it was nice to read again about Kit Rivers and to see what a good friend Rupert was to both Alex and Emmy. The sad futility of WW1 was once again brought to life - there must have been countless similar real life stories like theirs. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical and parallel story novels. Anyone who has already read and enjoyed The Letter will love it and everyone who reads or has read this book and hasn’t yet read The Letter surely has a treat in store.
This is a follow on and a standalone book which follows the life of Emmy Penndennys. She is a child on her 16th birthday when we meet her and go through her first adult years and the start of WWII. She meets Alex while having her photo taken and is smitten there on. Kit Rivers comes in to the story early on as he is friends with Emmy and his poems are in the heart of the former book, The Letters. We also meet many new characters and instantly fall in love with them.
Ruth has hit the mark with this book which spans over years from Alex to his great grandson who is off to the front line. The descriptions are second to none and the way the pictures of war are described puts the reader in the picture along with Emily. The whole book shows how attitudes have changed over the years from single moms to war. There is so much difference and yet so much the same and Ruth has captured it and put it into pages
The characters are truly loveable and Emmy showed that it is easy to give up and very tempting but sometimes you have to be a worrier for your family, she shows courage that most people could only dream of
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2020
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This was a very special book for me because it reminded me of the time when I was eight or nine and my grandfather would tell me and my sister stories about when he was in the RE's in the 14-18 war. His diary tells us just how hair-raising it all was and how he escaped death by millimetres sometimes. This book and its companion - The Letter - had me in floods of tears so many times, remembering my early childhood days. So, if you want a really well researched story with believable characters and which, importantly for me as a Celt who lives in Cheshire and is in his late seventies and would love to live in that part of South West Cornwall, which may or may not make you weep, this is the book for you.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 November 2020
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Nearly gave up on this book as the beginning was so irritatingly mawkish with Alison weeping and wailing about her son going off for his second tour of duty in the Middle East! I felt like telling her to grow up and get a grip! However, I persevered and, fortunately, it did improve. The rest of the book focused mainly on Emily and WW1, which I did enjoy. It was a tad whimsical and overly sentimental (in my view), but the storyline held my attention and I ended up enjoying it for the most part. The ending was somewhat fanciful .... and I’d have like to hear a bit more about Ivy, who seemed to be rather glossed over. Still, it was an easy read novel and occupied a few hours of boring lockdown.