Showing posts with label French resistance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French resistance. Show all posts

Monday 18 May 2020

Madame Fiocca: The Remarkable True Story of Nancy Wake by Suzy Henderson

You would have thought I would be churning out the reviews during this covid time. The airport is closed and I won't be going to work until at least June. Wrong, I've done hardly any reading, as reading is my lunch time or beach pleasure. Well beaches are closed and well work and hence breaks have stopped. It's been a great oportunity to start and finish some big projects. Like decorating a flat etc. Also going from a very active job to staying at home required a rethinking of activities. As we were in lockdown, walks had to be short.
With the help of excersise videos and short walks I managed to keep the weight down and am probably fitter than before lockdown.
France has since reopened and I can now again enjoy walks with a friend at 2m distance, the beach is also open but only for a swim. (so reading will not pick up for now)
This book took a while to read, not because it was dull but because of the above. It was a gripping read I enjoyed while doing 20min workouts on the cross trainer.
I gave it 5 stars.


War brings out the best and worst in people, and some go above and beyond. The true story of Australian woman Nancy Wake is a remarkable one and Suzy Henderson tells it well. The story starts with the early days of Nancy’s career as a journalist and her tentative romance to Henri. Nancy’s married bliss is like so many people at that time interrupted by war.  She chooses however to make a stand against the German invasion. A remarkable story unfolds about her time in the resistance and with the SOE, training and supplying the maquis.
The writer has paid great attention to the life and times of Nancy Wake and I’m pleased she put in a comprehensive prologue about her life after the war until her death. The book reads like a gripping historic romance and war time daring do, so you forget this was all based on fact. The writer has done an amazing job of bringing this amazing woman to life for me by giving her a heart and a soul. Recommended for readers of historic non-fiction and fiction.                                        

Wednesday 15 November 2017

The Lyon Affair: A French Resistance novel (The Indigo Rebels Book 2) by Ellie Midwood

You might know by now that I love reading historical fiction. This writer came across a wee while back and I loved her characters. Often women who have to make difficult choices and not always take the right ones. This book is no exception. I hugely enjoyed the Indigo Rebels by Ellie Midwood and the follow up I'm glad to say is also a 5 star read.
 Click on the pic. to take you to Amazon.
 


This is the second book in the Indigo Rebels series. It follows on from the Indigo Rebels, but the action moves from Paris to Lyon in the Free French zone and Dijon which is very much in occupied territory. It is a sequel but it would stand on its own. We are introduced to a number of new characters that take their lives in their hands by joining the resistance. What I like most about Ellie Midwood are her very human characters, and here we are introduced to two complex ones in the shape of Blanche and father Yves. Blanche is embittered by her past. Born of a German soldier and a French mother who alleged that she was raped, she has been shunned and teased since childhood. She joins the resistance to get back at the Germans that ruined her childhood. Blanche doesn’t find the kinship she so craves with her fellow resistance fighters and starts to wonder if it was really the Germans that ruined her childhood.  The other character I loved was Father Yves, a man with a dark past who is reluctantly drawn into the resistance, where he struggles with his vow to not harm again. There are many others but I don’t want to give away too much. Just pick up this book and let the heroes and villains reveal themselves. Some nail biting action too as they find out they have a traitor in their midst.