Tuesday 8 September 2015

PAST ENCOUNTERS by Deborah Swift

5 GOLD Stars

WW2 drama

On Amazon UK HERE




Wow!  What an amazing book ~ I read it over a period of 24 hours, ignoring everything else.... maybe that's all you need to know!

The book starts in 1955, with Rhoda and Peter's marriage cold and stagnant.  Rhoda discovers that Peter has been paying visits to an old friend she has never heard of, in all the ten years they've been married.

The story travels back to Peter's fortunes in World War II as a prisoner of the Germans; much of the book is about his experiences and these were the bits I found the most absorbing, so much that I've just been looking up some of the titles of suggested further reading at the end of the book.  I think these parts of this story will stay with me for a long time.  

Rhoda's own story was pretty heartbreaking, too, but I can't say too much because I don't want to give the plot away!  Suffice to say that Carnforth in Cumbria, where she lived, was the real location for parts of the film Brief Encounter, and Ms Swift has brought the filming of it to life in fiction.  It's obviously very well researched and is fascinating to read for that alone.


A link to my review of A Divided Inheritance is HERE ; it contains links to my reviews of The Gilded Lily and Shadow on the Highway. 



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