While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart

While Paris Slept: A Novel by Ruth Druart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 512

Publisher - Headline

Source - Vine

Blurb from Amazon

Paris 1944
A young woman's future is torn away in a heartbeat. Herded on to a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope.

Santa Cruz 1953
Jean-Luc thought he had left it all behind. The scar on his face a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi Occupation. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door.

On a darkened platform, two destinies become entangled. Their choice will change the future in ways neither could have imagined...


My Review

Duo timeline, multiple characters - we open in 1953 with Jean-Luc and Charlotte, alternating chapters. Happily settled in America with their son, recovering from the horrors of the war things are going relatively well. Until the past comes knocking and turns their world upside down - everything they love and cherish will be threatened because you can never forget or outrun your past.

Flipping to Paris, 1945, the war is in full grip and Jean-Luc is doing what he has to to survive, working on the railways near a camp where Jewish people are being held. Charlotte is helping out at a German hospital, each facing inner turmoil or judgement being so close to the German's and bearing witness to some of their evil and cruelty.

This is an emotive story, from reading different narratives and characters we see what it was like to live through the war, different perspectives. The worker, the carer, those trying to escape the Germans and the effect it had on them all in years to come. The struggles each faced, the love, loss, sacrifices, risks, danger and how it was in Paris with the German rule. I can't believe this is a debut, it is so well written, captures the reader early on and I wasn't expect to be swept along or have an attack of the emotions. Historical fiction isn't normally a genre I pull toward but I have been finding in recent years I am and enjoying although that seems the wrong choice of word because of the content. 4.5/5 for me this time, I will be looking forward to the next offering by this author.

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A Wartime Nurse by Maggie Hope

A Wartime Nurse by Maggie Hope
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 1.5 days

Pages - 416

Publisher - Ebury Press

Source - The Works (I think)

Blurb from Goodreads

As bombs begin to fall, her strength will be tested...

A newly qualified nurse, Theda Wearmouth is delighted to gain a place at Newcastle Hospital. But the onset of war brings tragedy when her young soldier boyfriend is killed in action before he can make good on his promise to marry her.

Broken-hearted, Theda finds herself re-assigned to a special unit of the hospital dealing with German prisoners of war. Her duty is clear. But will she be able to cope with nursing the very men her fiancé died fighting...?



My Review

I went into this thinking it was going to be one of those books with a big focus on the nursing side, it really isn't. Don't get me wrong it does mention nursing, some of it takes part in a hospital and the main character does train to and become a nurse however the central focus is relationships.

Theda Wearmouth trains to be a nurse, she has a boyfriend who is off to war and dies before they can be married. Theda is distraught but focuses on her career and has no intention of looking for anyone else but you know the way life plays it's hand, when you aren't looking you find someone. As a result Theda's life changes completely and she tries to deal with the hand fate has given her whilst keeping true to her focus, her career. Set during world war two there are many issues, poverty, danger, death, romance, family, ideas on what a young woman should do and how she should behave. Nursing prisoners of war, hospital life during that time period and of course Theda's romantic interests.

I did like the book it just wasn't what I was expecting. It makes you think about life and times of that period in history, the choices and sacrifices women had to make. 3.5/5 for me this time, I think this was my first time reading this author, I would read her again.

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