by Karen White
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 480
Format: eARC
Buy the Book: Amazon
Goodreads: A captivating story of friendship, love and betrayal – and finding hope in the darkness of war.
London, 1939. Beautiful and ambitious Eva Harlow and her American best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can’t believe her luck – she’s getting everything she ever wanted. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. As Eva struggles to protect everything she holds dear, all it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever.
London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. Maddie, healing from past trauma and careful to close herself off to others, finds herself drawn to both Precious and to Colin, Precious’ enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious’ haunting past – and the secrets she swore she’d never reveal …
Kritters Thoughts: One of my favorite types of historical fictions to read is when there is a historical storyline and a current storyline and they will weave in and out of each other throughout the book. In this book, both take place in London, one in 1939 where Precious Dubose and her best friend Eva Harlow are trying to make it with the impending threat of a war and the other is in 2019 as Maddie Warner has traveled to interview Precious about the fashion that happened before and during the war and she gets much more than a story about fashion.
This book has quite the cast of characters because of the two timelines and they overlap a bit, but this was one of those books that I definitely took notes so I could make sure I knew who was who and major defining characteristics of each. Without spoiling, it was good to have notes when the characters started partaking in nefarious activities and I wanted to keep alliances and enemies straight!
This was one of those books that I would recommend to people who don't tend to read historical fiction often as the present storyline infuses some moments where the reader can get into present day shoes and enjoy them for a minute. There were some great twists and turns throughout the book that kept the book pacing moving and moving, so this book read quick and easy and I loved that!
Karen White writes broadly so I love that she can write some straight women's fiction, but can also do historical fiction with the same great women characters just in a different moment in time!
Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row
Ebook 2021 Challenge: 43 out of 100
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one copy of this book free of charge from Berkley. I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Second review of this book I'm seeing today. Thanks for the review.
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