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The Hour of Separation Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Katharine McMahon (Author), Catherine Harvey (Narrator), Orion (Publisher)

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March 1939.

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.

Read by Catherine Harvey

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Product details

Listening Length	14 hours and 4 minutes
Author	Katharine McMahon
Narrator	Catherine Harvey
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	14 June 2018
Publisher	Orion
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B077V2LXNY
Best Sellers Rank	191,190 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 735 in 20th Century Historical Romance (Audible Books & Originals) 2,509 in War & Military Fiction 4,980 in 20th Century Historical Romance (Books)

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Top review from Australia

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nicola larg

Clear your day! Once you start you won’t want to stop.

Reviewed in Australia on 27 August 2018

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Could not put this down a really good read. I haven’t enjoyed a book like this in a long time.

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Top reviews from other countries

little bookworm

Rich in historical detail, though let down by the characterisation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 January 2019

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Estelle is the daughter of the much admired Resistance heroine, Fleur Cornelis Faider, who tragically lost her life during WW1. Desperate to learn more about her mother, Estelle travels to England where she seeks out Christa, whose father was the last of the men that Fleur helped to escape from Occupied Belgium. A friendship striking up between the pair, Estelle invites Christa to visit her at her family home, De Eikenhoeve, in Belgium. There, Christa spends an idyllic summer with Estelle and her two brothers, Pieter and Robbe, though tensions simmer beneath the surface both at De Eikenhoeve, and on a much larger scale as the word prepares for another war. Nothing after that summer will ever be the same, friendships fractured, loyalties tested and old betrayals coming to light.

I'm a fan of McMahon and this book certainly started off well for me. I enjoyed the historical detail and appreciated the research that had clearly gone into the writing. Unfortunately I was left somewhat disappointed in this book overall though. Having read The Rose of Sebastapol, which is a firm favourite of mine, I could but see a number of parallels between quite a few of the characters in that book and this one. Indeed, it is almost as if McMahon decided to re-use the main characters of that novel here, but play around with them a little and alter the relationship dynamics between them. Unfortunately the re-hashed versions of the characters came across as much less likable here.

Coupled with this, I failed to really connect to Fleur as a character as well, hence her backstory again didn't engage as well with me as it perhaps should have done.

Perhaps if I hadn't already read The Rose of Sebastapol, I may have enjoyed this book more, as it was, however, it could but fall a little short for me.

TemmaD

A Historical Novel with Contemporary Resonance

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 September 2018

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The Hour of Separation is a gripping love story centring on two generations of women resistance fighters who are both human and heroic; these are flawed but dynamic heroines who grab the narrative and our hearts. It looks at the way wounded men hide their vulnerability in bluster and machismo, the rise of fascism, and how people react under repressive regimes: in short - an historical novel with very contemporary resonances. McMahon's characters are well-rounded and convincing, and she evokes time and place - London, Brussels and the Belgian countryside in the war years, as if she had been there herself. I felt completely swept up in her story and could not put the book down - staying up late into the night to finish it.

One person found this helpful

D R Handley

Like running downhill and unable to stop

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2019

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This is a marvellous novel which doesn’t put a foot wrong. Why, I kept wondering, isn’t Katharine McMahon better known?

We begin in wartime London in 1942. Christa is in a government office somewhere in Whitehall and is having a difficult interview. She is being asked to make a difficult decision - to name which of two brothers is betraying a Resistance network in Belgium. She asks for time to reply and the rest of the novel works towards the answer to that question.

But after the action and excitement that are promised in the opening to the novel we take a deep breath and slow down. The imminent war is forgotten, for the moment at least, and we are immersed in the life of the Belgian farm which Christa visits just as war is about to break out and which is home to the two brothers and their sister Estelle.
The portrayal of the farm is entrancing but entirely unsentimental; and a whole web of complex relationships comes to life. Katharine McMahon really does this so well - how many novels are there with a huge cast of characters where you never stop to question their authenticity, where you never feel that the author has fallen back on some lazy but unconvincing convention from central casting?

Christa returns to England before war breaks out - and the novel changes pace. I felt as though I had been walking slowly and happily up a slight incline, admiring nature as I went and generally taking everything in. But now I suddenly found myself at the crest of the hill and then was running down the other side helter skelter and completely out of control. It is as if someone had suddenly shouted Action!

And there is so much of it, action, that is. In Belgium Estelle joins the resistance. In England Christa joins the war effort. We see how the German occupation gradually tightens its grip on Brussels - and how much of the plot can I give away? At any rate you, like me, will be reading faster and faster, just to keep up with what is happening. And it is all marvellous. Including the ending, which of course I can't reveal to you.

One person found this helpful

Ruth

A book of two halves

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 December 2020

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I could’ve easily given up reading this book at the halfway stage; ostensibly a story about resistance workers in WW1 & WW2 - but the first half was more of a love story, all about the mixed up emotions of Christa and Estelle. I was expecting much more about the resistance work itself - but I had to wait until the last third of the book to get to that. Not sure I would recommend ... sorry!

Fe Robinson

Wonderful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 August 2018

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A brilliant book, it had me gripped until the final page. It’s an amazing thing when a book transports you - I feel like I’ve been living in Belgium and lived through the war! I grew to love the main characters and by the end was devoted to them and their mission.

2 people found this helpful

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The Hour of Separation Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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