I enjoyed it very much, although I felt that the ending was a disappointment.
Don't want to spoil it for those who might want to read it.

You know, this one just didn't work for me. I read about a third of it and never really connected to the characters or cared much about the plot. The book went back to the library unfinished. Too bad, because this period of history intrigues me.

Rosefolly

I thought it was quite good. WWII era fiction appeals to me, I liked reading about the female war correspondents and enjoyed the back & forth between England, Europe and the "homefront" in New England. This is going to be one of the books I propose at my book club planning meeting.

I don't think this has hit the shelves in the UK and have not read it but did look at some reviews and have a question.
I understand that the author has her war correspondent/heroine travel from England to France in 1940/41? to check on conditions for refugees etc. Can someone who has read this, explain the logistics of how this woman actually got to mainland Europe in those impossibly dangerous times and presumably managed to return to base safely after her adventures? Is this another story where belief has to be suspended?

I've read The Postmistress and I would like to say a few words about it here.

I've read an article in one of the 2 most influential literary supplements here in Brazil, written by an editor of the paper, who is also a writer and a journalist. He opens his article by saying that ( my translation, of course ) "Good literature seduces, very good literature surprises, excellent literature enchants and brilliant literature amazes... " I was neither seduced nor surprised, and certainly not enchanted or amazed by this book. It is not a bad story at all. It takes place during WWII -- which greatly interests me -- but I think she told the story in a way that pleased her, the author, most of all, but not the general reader.

At the end of the book, she mentions the many books that she has read and the fact that she listened to many tapes during her research for the book. OK, this makes her more trustworthy as an author, but she still made some basic mistakes as, for example, on page 235, when a boy speaks what apparently looks like Spanish to say that his mother is dead, only to say after a few lines that the boy was Portuguese. A Portuguese boy speaking Spanish ? Hardly. And then I look again and the sentence is NOT correct in either languages; it's an incorrect mix of the two, in fact. The word in Spanish for 'dead' is what she wrote 'muerta' , which in Portuguese would be 'morta'. In both Spanish and in Portuguese, we have 2 verbs for the verb 'be' ( ser/ estar ) , depending if what you refer to is permanent ( the first verb ) or temporary ( the second ) , and although to be dead is completely permanent , we say , in Portuguese : 'A mamãe está morta ' using the temporary verb (it's an expression) OR ' A mamãe morreu', which would be 'Mother has died' in English.

Also, the permanent verb for the 3rd person , in Portuguese, would be 'é' , and she wrote only 'e' ( without the stress mark or accent ) , which in Portuguese would mean simply 'and' ( 'y' in Spanish, so there is no way that she could confuse both languages).

This could be a minor mistake for an English native speaker, but it is a major mistake for anyone speaking either Spanish OR Portuguese as their native language ( even for someone speaking these as foreign languages ), most of all cause we do NOT like our languages to be confused; it's even cultural, and I wanted you all to know this.

In Europe, Portugal is the only country that speaks Portuguese; likewise, Brazil is the only country that speaks Portuguese in South America. We often say here that while we 'falamos', they 'hablan' (speak), and we know that exactly the same thing is said in a Spanish-speaking country, just using the opposite.

How am I supposed to trust her ?

The story is OK, but I really didn't like the way the story is told. She stalls a lot ( let's say that she is in NY and, in order to go to Boston, she goes all the way down to Florida first ), she is very melodramatic , not to...

Overall, I liked the book very much and found the American-journalist-in-England portion of the story to be riveting. However, I was expecting a great deal more of the ending, and felt it rather meandered to a stop rather than finishing strong.

Vee, in the story the journalist character had some kind of special papers that allowed her to travel -- if I'm remembering the story details correctly, the US hadn't declared war on Germany yet when she went to Europe, so as long as her papers were in order, she could move about. Definitely suspension of disbelief, but the author at least tried to make it work.

Thanks Sheri, I'll just presume the author didn't send her from one of the English Channel ports to France/Holland as the Germans would have blown her boat out of the water without waiting to check her papers. Or maybe she was parachuted in with a group of under-cover agents? ;-)

I also was disturbed by her rather graphic description of the carnage and horrors of the blitz....tucked into a story that seemed to be more innocuous like ABOVE SUSPICION by Helen MacInnes.
I think that the author had great aspirations to tell a grand tale, and in the end....well, it just ended ( and poorly, in my estimation).

Oh, yoyobon, I agree with you : this story does have a poor ending... On top of everything... I'm not saying it's easy to write a book, because it is not, but she could have come up with a better ending.

Hmm, I think I'm glad I abandoned my attempt to read it.

Just finished this the other day, and must admit that I was rather disappointed in the ending. I found it confusing, and dull as a reader... I also had quite a rough time getting into the book. Like most readers, I enjoy the feeling of suspension when you get sucked into a good book - however, I didn't get that with this book.

Yes, the author did tonnes of research. But research doesn't always make the book a great read...

I didn't care much for this book. It seemed the author didn't know what to do with her characters other than have tragic things happen to them. It was predictable and boring. A touch of irony, or a twist somewhere would be have helped.

I'm sure she did a lot of research, but it certainly didn't show. The suspension of disbelief required was considerable. The errors that pumpernickel describes really undermine her credibility.

I'm reading this currently -- about one third of the way through. I'll check back here when I finish it. I think I've encountered one inaccuracy already.

I've just finished this novel and found it over-hyped. I thought it was an interesting premise, but the author just could not quite carry it off. I also found the plot bogged down in the middle of the book and I wondered if I was going to be able to finish, as I was losing interest in the characters. I thought the dialogue very convoluted and unclear in places, as well. Having said that, I felt this author has promise and that the novel got off to a good start, with a fairly strong ending. I've read far more gripping books set in the time frame of WW II than this one. I think the book could have used a good bit more editing.