💚 just starting this 💚
I was so disappointed by this book! It sets up such an interesting premise with the prospect of the Hess interrogation and the Welsh and German perspectives of the Second World War, and then it just devolves into sexual violence against a teenager, and oh of course, she winds up pregnant. I hated the whole storyline with Esther and Jim, and kept waiting to come back to Hess. Such missed potential.
This is what men will never understand, she realizes...Their dishonor, men's dishonor, can always be redeemed, defeat followed by victory, capture by escape, escape by capture. Up hill and down dale. But women are dishonored once and for all. Their only hope is to hide it. To keep it to themselves.
As WWII stories go, this was far less intense than the majority. It is set in a time & place that is not the norm for most Historical fiction relating to WWII. I had trouble getting into this initially but persevered and ended up enjoying it overall. It was a bit disjointed but it is a lighter WWII read with lovely prose. #LetterW #LitsyA-Z
He had wounded her, she thinks, and not a small wound, the drops of blood in her drawers, but something deeper and stranger. What a wound it is that stops you bleeding.
Davies is a talented author and his characters are vibrant. He also has a solid ending, which I appreciate. I found out that parts of the book were previously published as short stories and it shows, as somehow the various sections of the book don't seem to tie together strongly enough.