War Brides

War Brides

With war threatening to spread from Europe to England, the sleepy village of Crowmarsh Priors settles into a new sort of normal: Evacuees from London are billeted in local homes. Nightly air raids become grimly mundane. The tightening vice of rationing curtails every comfort. Men leave to fight and die. And five women forge an unlikely bond of friendship that will change their lives forever.

Alice Osbourne, the stolid daughter of the late vicar, is reeling from the news that Richard Fairfax broke their engagement to marry Evangeline Fontaine, an American girl from the Deep South. Evangeline’s arrival causes a stir in the village—but not the chaos that would ensue if they knew her motives for being there. Scrappy Elsie Pigeon is among the poor of London who see the evacuations as a chance to escape a life of destitution. Another new arrival is Tanni Zayman, a young Jewish girl who fled the horrors of Europe and now waits with her newborn son, certain that the rest of her family is safe and bound to show up any day. And then there’s Frances Falconleigh, a madcap, fearless debutante whose father is determined to keep her in the countryside and out of the papers.

As the war and its relentless hardships intensify around them, the same struggles that threaten to rip apart their lives also bring the five closer together. They draw strength from one another to defeat formidable enemies—hunger, falling bombs, the looming threat of a Nazi invasion, and a traitor in their midst—and find remarkable strength within themselves to help their friends. Theirs is a war-forged loyalty that will outlast the fiercest battle and endure years and distance.

When four of the women return to Crowmarsh Priors for a VE Day celebration fifty years later, television cameras focus on the heartwarming story of these old women as war brides of a bygone age, but miss the more newsworthy angle. The women’s mission is not to commemorate or remember—they’ve returned to settle a score and avenge one of their own.

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Title : War Brides

Author : Helen Bryan

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
• Language: English

Forgot exactly how I can stumbled and added this book into TBR list. May be it was  because of the promising title. A very unique and specific point of view of World War II- war from woman-bride to be-perspective or may be I'd like to know how WWII effected in England. 

War Brides is a story about Five women that married during hardest time of the War. Those five different women lived in small village Crowmarsh Prior when the war broke out.

First is Alice Osbourne, uptight and choleric girl whom live with her perfectionist mother. She was always loved Richard Fairfax, her childhood friend. They engaged but then surprise, Richard back from America with beautiful American woman, Evangeline.

Evangeline was eloped from America after created tragedy in there. The sudden arrival Beautiful, high spirited Evangeline has created a head ache to Richard's mother.

And the next arrival is Frances Falconleigh, beautiful endearing girl, a daughter of military important person, outcasted by her father due to the scandals she created in London. She is smart, easily bored, partygoers-that made every man easily fallin in love with here. 

Then there is Tanni Zayman, jewish girl that eloped from Europe to avoid the war. She is quite reserved but talented. The last is Elsie Pigeon, poor girl from London and evacuated to  Crowmarsh Prior, separated from her familiy. Free up from her family for the first time, she was entering rebellious period and easily made friend with Frances

Those 5 womans, stranger at first and then war push us to cooperate and be loyal to each other. 

The premise and plot is like i said, promising. On 1995, several decades after the war, the girls plan to visit Crowmarsh for the VE day Celebration. Then the plot is reverted to early period before WWII. 

One by one, the spotlights turned on to the protagonists. Chronically, the author told a story about what happen on September 1939, spring 1940, jump to November 1941 and so on. It's very good for the reader understand what happened in the past. But the problem, my problem is too much happened, too much persons tried to take the spot in the one period. The story easily changed like every couple paragraphs. I was struggling and tempted to write down who is who, what happen to who, what relations between who and who.

The plot itself is fast paced, but start getting interesting when the girls start planning to smuggle Tanni's sisters to England. But it is almost 3/4 of the book.

May be, because the dialogues  not as much as the description, i cannot feel the connection between the protagonists and their grooms, except for Elsie..which i struggle to understand what exactly she said.

And the ending? Oh come on, a reporter's point of view? it's too often and feels like a shortcut for the author to tell everything.

Well, it's not a bad book. The plot is promising, just the writing is not my cup of tea. May be, i would be glad if the author try to more "showing" rather than "telling". I feel like reading history book with additional dialogues. Cannot feel any emotion with the characters,even the characterizations were great. 





Lastly, will i recommend this book to read? hmm...if you good with names and very prompt pace, yes you would love to read it!