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Alma Braithwaite was a teenager in Exeter when her boarding school was bombed in 1942. Twenty-one years later, she remains alone in the house where she grew up, teaching music at her old school, unable to move on from the tragic events of the war. It takes the arrival of an innovative new headmistress and a new pupil – the daughter of a man Alma hasn’t seen since 1942 – to bring back the painful yet exhilarating summer that followed the air-raids and jolt her out of the past.
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Reviews
Oscillating between World War II and the early Sixties, Morrall sets about evoking the war's enduring impact on those who were left behind on the home front, too young to take part yet irrevocably shaped by it nonetheless . . . an engaging story throughout.
A potent evocation of the war on the Home Front and its emotional impact on the young people who survived it . . . as much a tale about identity and survival as it is about the impact of national trauma on individuals . . . Her dedication to authenticity has paid off. The novel resonates with the age
Clare Morrall is a writer with a gift for unflamboyant but effective storytelling . . . her narrative has a cumulative power
Unusually emotional and moving . . . You'll fly through it in no time - and love every minute of this deep, engrossing experience.
I was enchanted from the very first page. The author's descriptions of war-torn Exeter are so vivid, I felt I was there.