This should not shock anyone who reads my posts regularly…I read and am recommending another WWII novel:
The Words I Never Wrote: A Novel
by Jane Thynne
This book was featured on my early 2020 reading list.
In our standard dual timeline, it’s 2016 and Juno is looking for a typewriter as a prop for a photo shoot. She finds a Hermes 3000 that the seller says belonged to Cordelia Capel, a famous journalist. The timewriter case contains half of an unpublished novel.
Juno reads the novel which details Cordelia and her sister Irene’s lives before and during WWII, then the novel abruptly ends.
Cordelia works as a journalist in Paris and later for the British intelligence. Irene has married a German (in 1936) and is living in pre-war Berlin married to a highly respected man among the Nazi-party.
Juno has just broken up with her boyfriend and gets an opportunity to go to Germany under the premise of her own job (eye-roll) but mostly to research this story. So some of this story line was similar to some I have read before, and a few times I rolled my eyes at the coincidences that moved the story along. However, overall it was an enjoyable read, and I am still recommending this book. Because:
The sisters’ stories were both engaging. Cordelia’s life is exciting working the fashion scene in pre-war Paris, and Irene’s perspective as a British wife in Germany who at first enjoys the parties and lifestyle before she sees the ultimate terrors materializing was one I have not read as many times. And the book is 80% or more these two sisters’ stories. In fact there was one time it went back to 2016 abruptly, and I had forgotten that story was even part of the book!
Despite my minor annoyances, I truly enjoyed picking this book up each evening, and that is my most important criteria for my recommendation.
Thank you NetGalley for providing a download of this book in exchange for an honest review.