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A very touching WWII-era story. I found it in a promo section of the bookstore with an "upstairs/downstairs" theme, but I really thought this story rose above this little marketing section. The main character is a young girl from Vienna, a refuge from a respected, artistic family sent to England to work as a servant. As in similar novels, the young Elise falls in love with the charming heir to her new home Tyneford, a beautiful, wild, coastal estate.
What sets the story apart is that the main cha ...more
What sets the story apart is that the main cha ...more
I very much enjoyed this book. It is the story of a Jewish girl from Vienna who is suddenly sent to England to be a maid in a manor house, in hopes that she will be protected during the onset and subsequent fighting and pogroms of World War II. Tyneford is in an out-of-the-way, very peaceful part of England, but as happened, even there people were not safe from the war, or from the horrors that war brings. It is also a tangled love story as well as the story of a family torn apart by the war. It
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Nov 25, 2013
Suzanne
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
wwii
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The story kind of meanders and the characters never really clicked with me, but it was a pleasant read about things that took place before and during WWII.
Elise is a Jewish girl in Austria in 1938. While her family is upper-middle class in Vienna, they realize the need to escape the country and she procures herself a job as a housemaid at an English country house by the sea. The story is of her life in England as well as what happens to the rest of her family. While I did really enjoy this story I thought sometimes it was heavy handed, especially in the foreshadowing. However, I love novel about England so of course I enjoyed this one.
Mar 07, 2012
Jayme Pendergraft
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2013,
src-spring-2013
Apr 23, 2018
Terri
marked it as jewish-book-club
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
jewish-fiction
