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The Morning Gift

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 3,362 ratings · 337 reviews

Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé are waiting for her in safety, Ruth is stuck in Vienna with no way to escape. Then she encounters her father’s younger college professor, th...more

Paperback, 410 pages

Published September 6th 2007 by Speak (first published January 1st 1198)

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Mar 08, 2009 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Beth by: Amy

After reading the above blurb about the book, I was excited to dive in. Oh yes, this seemed to fit neatly into my preferred genre! I couldn’t tell if it was going to be more romance-ish or historical-fiction-y, but I figured either way I was set.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I really found myself struggling to get into this book. Eva Ibbotson’s writing style is flowy — I picked out one sentence that were so long, being packed with five or six wordy dependent clauses, that it literally was its...more After reading the above blurb about the book, I was excited to dive in. Oh yes, this seemed to fit neatly into my preferred genre! I couldn’t tell if it was going to be more romance-ish or historical-fiction-y, but I figured either way I was set.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I really found myself struggling to get into this book. Eva Ibbotson’s writing style is flowy — I picked out one sentence that were so long, being packed with five or six wordy dependent clauses, that it literally was its own paragraph. The characters were well-educated and the author must be, too, alluding to all kinds of musical composers and pieces of art and obscure species of marine life and archeological finds of the early twentieth century — I was drowning in the sea of academia, especially in the beginning as I tried to sort out fictional characters from real persons who I’d never heard of.

And the fictional characters — my, there were a lot of ‘em! There’s Ruth and Quin, obviously: the main characters. Then there’s Ruth’s parents. There’s Ruth’s fiance, Heini (his name proves to be pretty accurate, as he really can be a you-know-what). There’s Hilda, and a guy names Ziller, and a girl named Fraulein Something-or-Other, and a Miss Maud, and Miss Somebody Else, and Mrs. Weiss, and a guy named Levy, and Ruth’s uncle Mishak (and his dead wife Marianne). There’s Ruth’s friends she meets at school: Sam (who has a crush on Ruth), Huw (the Welshman), Pilly (who Ruth tutors), Janet (who’s seen the backseat of a motorcar a time or two); and Kurt (or was it Kent?) the grocer’s son; and Ruth’s arch-nemesis Verena (oh, and Verena’s mom). There’s Quin’s great aunt Frances and the maid Elsie who is a hundred years old and the Basher, Quin’s grandfather (great-grandfather?). There’s a couple of other professors: Roger Something? And a female professor? And a bunch of others mentioned only a few times in the story.

And each character really is a fleshed-out character. The prologue is filled with Ruth’s family history, the how-we-met story of her parents. The book shifts points-of-view from Ruth to Quin to any one of these secondary characters.

No wonder I felt like I was drowning until, like, page eighty. (Never mind that it’s shelved as “Young Adult.” I guess it’s only shelved as such because there’s not any steamy, R-rated detail; not because the average teenager will actually catch all this stuff.)

It took awhile, but then, finally, I started warming up to Ibbotson’s writing style. In fact, by about page 200, I realized something unexpected: I loved her writing. Somehow she had a way of conveying feeling in her sentence structure, and not the words themselves. Her detail painted beautiful, intricate scenes. Simply amazing.

And those secondary characters that were so cumbersome at the beginning — I actually enjoyed them, too. I loved the story about Mishak and Marianne, loved Great-Aunt Frances (and her reaction to Mishak’s story), loved Pilly (a true and loyal friend). Loved Verena in a love-to-hate-her sort of way; loved-to-hate Heini even more.

The storyline itself was a little too predictable, I thought (at least, I was a step ahead of the characters for the most part) and a little too cheesy at the end (these silly romance novel characters never bother to actually *talk* to each other for fifty-some pages, creating all kinds of “drama,” and then they talk to each other and they *love* each other again). But since the silliness of the story was cloaked in such fabulous writing and charming secondary characters I can’t say I minded too much.

I’d probably benefit from a re-read of this book — there’s so much detail I would actually understand the second time around. However, I think I’d rather just read something else by the same author — now that I have a better idea of what to expect.(less)

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Dec 01, 2008 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008, ya, historical-fiction

I am actually quite disappointed in this book. I read "A Song for Summer" and loved it and was excited to get my hands on another of Ibbotson's books.

My main complaint was that I felt like I had read the story before -- a sweeter, more compelling version with characters I found more honest and likable. I actually loved some of the secondary characters but not Ruth and Quin so much. I mean Ruth had this amazing life growing up around these amazingly smart people and living by the sea in Austria...more

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Dec 20, 2008 Jen rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The first Eva Ibbotson book I ever read was A Countess Below Stairs and I was reluctant to buy any of the other books because I really did not see how she could top it. Regardless I have faith in authors with their craft so I took the plunge with The Morning Gift (I’m a sucker for pretty covers really).

And then I hit my head on the diving board.

I usually read books within a few hours to a day depending on how focused I am and how much I love the book. Reading the first half of the book took me...more

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Apr 04, 2009 Chelsea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, historicalfiction, own, recced, youngadult, romance

Another charming read from Ibbotson. I know I keep using "charming" to describe her works, but I'm not sure how else to put it. They're fun, old fashioned, sweet, funny, and altogether delightful: they're charming.

I found myself skimming in this one a little bit, something I didn't do with any of the other Ibbotson books I've read, which I'm attributing to having read four of her books in the span of about three months. Her writing style and themes are consistent enough that I had some deja vu m...more

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Jan 09, 2009 Katie Hutchison Irion rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wish I could give this a 4.5. This is another book that is now being marketed to young adults but was once published as an adult book. I really liked the story and the writing style. This one is set in Vienna during WWII. Here's the short from Amazon:
Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé are waiting...more

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May 15, 2013 Melody rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, nobility, swoon, summer13

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 29, 2012 Rachel Lewis rated it 4 of 5 stars

While I really enjoyed this book and struggled to put it down, I did feel a little cheated by it, especially towards the end. Ibbotson has a habit in this book of ending the chapter on a cliffhanger just as her characters are making a startling discovery... and then skipping forwards in time so we never get to see their reaction or the aftermath. This is a charming and well written book (and, unusually for books of this style and genre, it wasn't particularly predictable), but 90% of it was spen...more

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May 06, 2012 Neile rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ruth is Jewish and lives in Vienna as the Nazi are taking her country over. She was supposed to leave, but was stopped at the border after her family has already left, and now there is no way out of Austria for her. But a friend that her academic father had invited to receive an honorary degree at his university is there to receive it and discovers Ruth is still there. There is nothing to do but to marry her so she can leave with him. He convinces her to do it, even though she is engaged to a co...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Britain rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: pg-13-reads

The only thing keeping me from giving this book five stars are the more intimate personal scenes in the book. This is the most romantically mild of all the books in this series in that way (the main characters are legally married and there are no extramarital affairs). But some of the characters are not the best moral examples. If you are sensitive about this kind of material, you might want to review it before handing it to your teens. I believe it was originally written for adults and somehow...more

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Oct 24, 2011 Helen rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was the last Eva Ibbotson book I read, and it's my go-to book whenever I need something to read. I've probably read this book twenty times, and I love how I can still find something that I missed in the past. I love Ruth and how amusing and confused sometimes despite her thorough top-notch education. She's been spoiled to bits by her family, her father's colleagues, and family friends, but when she comes to London as virtually a pauper, she doesn't mind. She loves everyone and will HELP. He...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars

This only the second Ibbotsen novel I've read (In the Company of Swans the other), and I have become a fan. She knows how to tell a story even when the first chapter is purely narrative. I love her heroes and heroines (even though some reviewers don't) and settings. This story, in addition, has a wonderful set of secondary characters, so even though the hero and heroine don't have that much contact with each other over the course of the book, Ibbotsen succeeds in immersing one in the lives of th...more

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Jun 22, 2011 Kris Irvin rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Wow, I really never thought I would read an Ibbotson book that I didn't like.

I mean, truly. There's some pretty glaring editing errors (at least in the edition I have), and some things that just plain don't make sense. And then there's the fact that the story is kind of... odd. I mean, it sounds really sweet and like it's going to be a good story, so maybe that's why I didn't like this book. It was a huge letdown. If I had to choose, I'd say I am most disappointed about the random, out of left-...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Donna Alward rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love Eva Ibbotson's writing. I adored The Secret Countess (A Countess Below Stairs). And I love the WWII era so I figured The Morning Gift would be wonderful.

I'll confess it was harder to get into than I expected. While there were the right sort of "villians" - Verena and Heini were yucky - they just weren't as "delicious" as the villains in The Secret Countess. Perhaps because there wasn't an Olive to feel so protective about. In The Secret Countess, the other servants and Uncle Sebastien wer...more

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Jul 12, 2010 Dlora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction, history, romance

I love Ibbotson's quirky characters and old-fashioned ideals. This novel was much like my very favorite book of hers, A Countess Below Stairs. Actually, the ending was more satisfying to me in A Countess but The Morning Gift had better setting. Set at the beginning of World War II, we taste the flavor of "the twilit world of the refugees, the world of menial jobs, of anxiety about permits and poverty and fear." There is Dr. Levy, the renowned heart specialist who is spending his days in the publ...more I love Ibbotson's quirky characters and old-fashioned ideals. This novel was much like my very favorite book of hers, A Countess Below Stairs. Actually, the ending was more satisfying to me in A Countess but The Morning Gift had better setting. Set at the beginning of World War II, we taste the flavor of "the twilit world of the refugees, the world of menial jobs, of anxiety about permits and poverty and fear." There is Dr. Levy, the renowned heart specialist who is spending his days in the public library studying to retake his medical exams in English. There is Paul Ziller, the leader of the elite classical Ziller Quartet, who has no work permit, his quartet was disbanded, he spends time at the Jewish Day Center to practice in an unused cloakroom, and at night he dresses up to play bogus gypsy music in a Hungarian restaurant in exchange for food. Among a whole batch of colorful refugees from Austria and Germany and Poland, is Ruth Berger, a young college-age girl who has been raised as a Catholic and is only part Jew--but that makes no difference to the Nazis. Ruth lives life deeply, understanding and caring about people and being carried away by music and scenery and ideas. Ruth is highly intelligent and an excellent student, but at the same time she is curiously innocent. A friend said of her, "She made life . . . big for me. For all of us. Important, not petty. But sometimes suddenly she'd behave like someone in a book or an opera."

Ruth was sent off to England to keep her safe, but plans fell through and when she got back home, her family had also fled to England before the Nazis. Ruth was coming up with all kinds of quixotic ways to get across the border, when one of her father's young colleagues, British paleontologist Quin Sommerville, discovers her plight and ends up marrying her to help get her out of Vienna. The plan was to get an annulment when Ruth is safe in England, but that was easier said than done. I love Ruth's reluctance to get "temporarily" married because for her family: "You see, they're very old-fashioned and they might find it difficult to understand that a marriage could mean absolutely nothing." Quinn comments that there have been a lot of happy marriages in Ruth's family, to which she responds, "I don't know. . . . In general I don't think they thought of [marriage:] as something that made you happy. It was what you did . . . because you had set out to do it. It was . . . work; it was like plowing a field or painting a picture--you kept on adding colors or trying to get the perspective right."

I love the ideas in this book, the really good use of language, the high moral tone, the quirky characters, the compelling story of the refugees and their difficulty moving into a new land and culture. (less)

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Jan 28, 2010 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to love this book. The writing style is enchanting, and the characters are fleshy enough to be human and likeable. This book even attempted to address (to a very minor extent) the relocation of Jews during the Holocaust.

However, the plot ended up being just too trite to enjoy. The heroine is simply too much like every other Ibbotson heroine. In fact, I found her to be pretty interchangable with Harriet from "A Company of Swans." I also found our hero to be made of exactly the sam...more

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Nov 21, 2009 Treasa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, historical-fiction, romance, young-adult

This was not my favorite Eva Ibbotson book, but I still enjoyed it.

Ruth, a teenager who is part Jewish, is living in Vienna at the time of the Aschluss. The rest of her family manages to escape to England, but she is left behind because of various circumstances. One of her father's fellow professors, Quin, a young man and resident of England, finds her and does the only thing he can think of to get her safely out of the country: he marries her. Their marriage is one in name only, and they agree...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Jake Rideout rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book, and the main character reminded me of my friend Julia from college. It's about a girl, Ruth, whose father is the dean of paleontology at a Viennese University. At the start of Hitler's reign, he is replaced with a non-Jew and his family flees to England. However, Ruth is sent ahead on a student visa and doesn't make it across the border because she has already been caught at political rallies and has been red flagged. She waits until her family leaves and then returns t...more

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Jun 01, 2009 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 07, 2011 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011, far-off-places, favorite-authors, favorites, favorite-characters, fiction, historical-fiction, romance, light, war, ya

The first Eva Ibbotson book I read was "A Countess Below Stairs." I was immediately hooked on her lightness and whimsy. "The Morning Gift" deals with love, Nazism, prejudice, the difficulty of refugee life, and a world on the brink of war, yet the style remains lighthearted throughout. It took me a while to become into to the characters like I did those in ACBS, but once I did (around page 150) I could barely put the book down.

The synopsis is straightforward: Ruth Berger, a part Jew in Vienna in...more

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Sep 20, 2009 carrietracy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-light-reading, wwii

I feel compelled to review this mainly because the reviews towards the top at this point are so negative in tone, with some of the concern focusing around the readability of Ibbotson's writing. I do not find her writing overly flowery, rather in the books I have read I feel transported to another world, particularly when she is writing of Vienna. As for accusations that there are too many confusing references to academic things, well, yes, if you don't know who Freud is, or Beethoven or Mozart,...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction

Eva Ibbotson holds true to her pattern. I think most, if not every book I have read by her involves a romance between a young, wide eyed, innocent girl who sees things through the lens of art, or poetry, or music or dance - who sees the world with new eyes and whose enthusiasm for life is simple and contagious. And an older, life experienced man with some sort of tragedy or bitterness in his past that has kept him from finding happiness in the form of a wife, though he is always highly pursued....more

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Aug 07, 2012 Mandi Ellsworth added it

Eva Ibbotson brings to life the city of Vienna. I never really thought about it before reading her stories, but she makes it sound so magical, and so historical.

This story begins in 1938, just as the Nazi's take over Austria. Ruth isn't really Jewish, but her family has enough in them to be persecuted, so they make their way to England. Ruth, who has trouble leaving the country, is saved by Prof. Sommerville, a family friend, who happens to find her and takes pity on her. But it seems the only...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Kristin rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 04, 2012 Susanne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone who's looking for a fun sparkling romance

Shelves: everyone-should-read, genre-classics

I had given up on Eva Ibbotson – but I'm glad to say that I was mistaken. I utterly adored this book – and laughed out loud more than once! I cannot put into words how much I liked this book but I'll try anyway.

Ruth is a sweet, charming and very charismatic heroine who attracts everyone who meets her. She’s the daughter of Professor Berger and grows up in Vienna. When the Nazis take over she’s leaving ahead of her family on a student visa, but she's sent back and the rest of the family is gone....more I had given up on Eva Ibbotson – but I'm glad to say that I was mistaken. I utterly adored this book – and laughed out loud more than once! I cannot put into words how much I liked this book but I'll try anyway.

Ruth is a sweet, charming and very charismatic heroine who attracts everyone who meets her. She’s the daughter of Professor Berger and grows up in Vienna. When the Nazis take over she’s leaving ahead of her family on a student visa, but she's sent back and the rest of the family is gone. Luckily she meets Quin, her father's protégé who just got an honorary doctorate in Vienna. He cannot leave her in Vienna and the only escape is through a marriage of convenience, to be dissolved as soon as they reach London. Only it turns out that it wasn't that easy to dissolve a marriage – and somehow Ruth ends up in his class at the university. But Ruth was supposed to get engage to Heini, a concert pianist trying to escape from Budapest, and Verena Plackett who's also in the class, the Vice Chancellor's daughter, plans on marrying Quin herself.

The story is set during the beginning of the Second World War, and it's in the background throughout the book. Eva Ibbotson was a refugee from Vienna in London and you can tell she’s in her element. The book takes place at the university and personally I really liked all the science references. It also provides some deeper insights into the culture and life during this time, and also into the life of refugees coming to a new country having left all behind.

Previously I have had trouble with Eva Ibbotson in A Countess Below Stairs and A Company of Swans in which she wrote out the romance instead of letting the characters act it out but this story was completely different! Ruth and Quin have plenty of interactions and it's through these we start suspect that there might be something between them even though they haven't caught up.

I loved almost everything about this book. I loved the lead couple – their interactions, bantering and slow realization that they might love each other after all. The plot was exciting, the setting exquisite and an immense story structure. I read an older version which I borrowed from the library and I think this might be better than the new one (the previous book I read was full of typos and strange translations – here there was nothing of this sort). There were great twists and turns and I was super excited to find out how (or if) they were going to end up in their happily ever after. I would recommend this to everyone!
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Jan 10, 2009 Haley rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Ariane, Ali, Tahlia, Lindsey

Recommended to Haley by: Erin

Loved this book! It takes place at the start of WWII. The main character, Ruth, is part Jewish and needs to escape Vienna. Her parents and fiance escaped ahead of her, but things went awry with Ruth's escape. A colleague of her father, Professor Quin Sommerville, helps her escape by marrying her so she can have a British passport. (FYI: age difference = 10 years) The plan was to get the marriage annulled right away, but even that proves more difficult than either of them thought during those har...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Amber rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed emotions about this book. It's more like 3.5 stars. I loved the story line, and I loved the interaction between the two main characters, but sometimes I couldn't even tell, were they really falling in love with each other? Sometimes the author sure makes it hard to tell. The only reason I didn't LOVE this book is because of the whole sex part. Number one, it totally ruined the book for me that the main male character sleeps with another girl casually just because. He doesn't love he...more

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Oct 24, 2009 Mulber rated it 4 of 5 stars

I always forget how much I love Eva Ibbotson until I pick up another one of her books to read. This story fed right into a recent discussion I had with one of my professors, about being "jewish" and what that means, and the very Jewish idealogy of helping people that he evidently thinks I lack. With this story of Vienna and London in the time of world war II, Eva teases out the clash between cultural ideologies, identities, and values, without feeling the need to take you to the trenches. But th...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars. I liked this better than some of Ibbotson's other novels. However, this was after battling through a very slow start. I loved the second half of the book enough to make up for the dull first half. The plot was not at all what I expected after reading the "get you interested" blurb on the back of the book and this may have contributed to my feeling that it was a slow beginning. Plus- can I just say- I hate this cover. And I don't usually say "hate". This is the second book this month t...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: from-library

I really wanted to like this one. I really did. I read A Countess Below Stairs and I loved it. I expected Eva Ibbotson to live up to my expectations with The Morning Gift. Unfortunately, this book fell extremely short.
It wasn't for lack of trying. I pushed my way through this book, telling myself it would get better. But it didn't. It was a struggle for me to finish this book, and that doesn't happen very often for me.
I think a lot of the reason why I didn't like this book were the characters....more

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Jan 26, 2011 Dawn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Because I enjoyed The Reluctant Heiress, I decided to read another Ibbotson romance, The Morning Gift. I actually liked the characters and setting more than "Heiress." But I'm getting tired of the "talented but helpless female needs rescuing by strong, stoic male" scenario. Ibbotson's writing is usually delightful, but I found this book frustrating. The most frustrating thing to me was the brief and sudden nature of the final reconciliation scene. These two characters have spent an entire book k...more

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About Eva Ibbotson

Eva Ibbotson (born Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner, 1925, Vienna, Austria) was a British novelist specializing in romance and children's fantasy. Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler came into power, Ibbotson's family moved to England. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, from which she graduat...more Eva Ibbotson (born Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner, 1925, Vienna, Austria) was a British novelist specializing in romance and children's fantasy. Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler came into power, Ibbotson's family moved to England. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, from which she graduated with a diploma in education in 1965. Ibbotson had intended to be a physiologist, but was put off by the amount of animal testing that she would have to do. Instead, she married and raised a family, returning to school to become a teacher in the 1960's. Ibbotson was widowed with three sons and a daughter.

Ibottson began writing with the television drama Linda Came Today, in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, The Great Ghost Rescue. Ibbotson has written numerous books including The Secret of Platform 13, Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch?, Island of the Aunts, and Dial-a-Ghost. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Journey to the River Sea, and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature. The books are imaginative and humorous, and most of them feature magical creatures and places, despite the fact that she disliked thinking about the supernatural, and created the characters because she wanted to decrease her readers' fear of such things. Some of the books, particularly Journey to the River Sea, also reflect Ibbotson's love of nature. Ibbotson wrote this book in honor of her husband (who had died just before she wrote it), a former naturalist. The book had been in her head for years before she actually wrote it. Ibbotson said she dislikes "financial greed and a lust for power" and often creates antagonists in her books who have these characteristics. Some have been struck by the similarity of "Platform 9 3/4" in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to Ibbotson's The Secret of Platform 13, which came out three years before the first Harry Potter book.

Her love of Austria is evident in works such as The Star Of Kazan and A Song For Summer. These books, set primarily in the Austrian countryside, display the author's love for nature and all things natural.

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“I want to live like music sounds."- Ruth” — 23 people liked it

“One must not judge other cultures by the standars of one's one,' said Aunt Hilda” — 11 people liked it

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