Here are three things I loved

The moral conflict: Cilla and Lachlan are both essentially good characters to whom deception, disloyalty and duplicity do not come easily. Both are trapped in one way or another. Cilla has no love for the Nazis but cannot convince anyone of that. Lachlan has no desire to work with MI5, but has to face the string of moral compromises that his situation brings on. The complex layers of moral conflict within each of these characters are well drawn and compel the reader through the book for the first quarter.

The Scottish hero: Sigh. I do love a Scottish hero with red hair and a strong moral compass (I even wrote one as my hero in These Long Shadows, coming out in March!). Goodness is such an underrated quality hero, and Lachlan is a good man forced to help Cilla lie and sabotage the country he loves. Sundin hits all the right Scottish ‘beats’ from Hogmanay to Robbie Burns quotes…and when he wraps her in his plaid I almost swooned.

The black moment: The promise (and quite, frankly, joy) of a romance is a happily ever after so of course you expect that despite the obstacles to true love, everything will work out in the wash. However, I don’t think I’ve ever been as thoroughly convinced by a “black moment” in a romance story as I was by this one. I honestly didn’t think they were going to make it. To which I say, “Well played, Miss Sundin. Well played.”

Midnight on the Scottish Shore releases on 4 February 2025. Get it from Amazon US, Amazon Australia, or the usual bookish places. I was provided an advanced copy of Midnight on the Scottish Shore by Netgalley, but this didn’t influence my review.

Three things I loved

The opening: The first chapter of this book is utterly gripping. The reader is dropped right in the middle of the action right next to Aleida as she tries to escape. We feel the full effect of her husband’s abusive behaviour and experience the shock and grief of discovering she is separated from her beloved son, all in the first gripping 1500 or so words.

This is the kind of scene that seals the deal in the bookshop because you know with a writer like Sarah Sundin if the first scene is this good the rest of the book will be brilliant.

A radio journalist hero: I might be biased here because my husband was a radio journalist when I met and married him! But Hugh is absolutely delightful. I liked the distinctions Sundin made between the deceitful nature of the charm of Aleida’s first husband and that of the charismatic Hugh. I adored the behind-the-scenes details of the BBC during wartime. The regular gatherings of journalists and correspondents at the Heart and Swan pub were some of my favourites.

An unexpected murder mystery: I loved the murder mystery storyline that bubbled away in the background and its gripping conclusion. The mystery and suspense elements were elegantly woven into what is primarily a love story, with plenty of twists and a satisfying climax.

Embers in the London Sky is available at Amazon US and Amazon Australia.

We meet twin sisters Helena and Antonina in 1939, as Warsaw teeters on the cusp of war, and fall headlong with them into the barbarism wrought on their city. Estranged from each other through misunderstanding, the sisters pursue resistance in their own ways––one is a people smuggler and one is a soldier––and through them we witness some of the most brutal parts of the German occupation. Sieges. Bombings. Doomed uprisings. Mass slaughters. 

Amanda’s skill is taking devastating details from historical accounts, and reweaving them into her narrative so that it feels like a first hand account. (Amanda’s historical notes at the end of the book highlight where and how she has done this.) As time marches steadily away from these events and the eyewitnesses to this history pass away, the importance of a novelist’s skill to recreate them with unflinching detail grows. 

This is not a light story (even the ending is tainted by the knowledge that Poland ultimately swapped a Nazi occupation for a Soviet one) but it pays great honour to the people of Poland. You will be thinking about it long after you have put it down.

Buy from Amazon US, Amazon Australia or find other links at Amanda’s website (where you can also read an excerpt).

The Story

Caroline Payne is approached by Mat Hammond, an old friend and historian, who is seeking comment on an article he is writing that exposes a scandalous secret from her family’s past. No one knows better than Caroline that his thesis––which is that history profoundly shapes the present––is correct, because her family has been living in the shadow of this secret, without her even knowing it. But will the secret turn out to be a lie? Here are three things I loved about the book

Three things I loved

Structure: Like I say, I wasn’t expecting a time split novel, but the crafting of the two narratives was so skillfully done. I was deeply involved in both the historical story and present-day stakes. This was my first Katherine Reay book and I will definitely be seeking out more! 

Epic historical sleuthing: It’s clear the author has spent time in archives and understands the drudge work of research. However, she made the work feel so compelling and fast paced! The epistolary style of the WWII narrative effortlessly flowed into the modern narrative.

Meditations on truth: At the core of The London House is the thesis that objective truth exists, and that finding it matters. This idea is woven into the fabric of the book so that it never preaches, but only inspires. The way good fiction should.

The London House is available at Amazon US and Amazon Australia.

The Sound of Light

The Sound of Light is set in World War II Denmark. In the opening pages, as the Germans invade Denmark, our hero Baron Henrik Ahlfeldt has to make a desperate choice. Does he flee to Sweden, or does he go into hiding, concealing his aristocratic identity so he can put his skills as an Olympic rowers to use, couriering information across the sound between Sweden and Denmark?

The action quickly moves to 1943 where we meet Dr Else Jensen, a Danish-American physicist working at the Institute headed by Niels Bohr (a real life character Sundin worked into her story). While Else makes her own choices that defy the Nazis, she is unaware that her quiet, seemingly uneducated neighbour at her boarding house, Hemming Anderson, is actually Henrik. In the intervening years, he has become known as the Hauman (The Merman) for his critical resistance work. The romance unfolds achingly slowly as these two characters come to know, understand and then love each other with all the secrets and complications that working with the resistance naturally throws up.

Three things I loved

Normally, I try to write reviews where I focus on three things I love about a book. In the case of The Sound of Light, it’s hard to narrow it down to just three! However, I tried.

1) The Danish setting: Like the Ocracoke islands in Roseanna White’s Yesterday’s Tides, WWII Denmark is not a setting I know much about. Sarah makes it come to life. As always, her author’s note at the end shed light on the facts behind the fiction. I was interested to learn that, though occupied by the Nazis, the Danish people at first enjoyed freedoms that other occupied nations didn’t. Of course, that didn’t last but as the events of the story unfolded, I was moved by the courage of the Danish people who rose up to protect their Jewish communities.

2) Gritty reality: As I mentioned when I reviewed Within These Walls of Sorrow, life is harrowing and I don’t need my reading to be. But that doesn’t mean I want my reading to be all rainbows and unicorns! I appreciate Sarah’s deft hand when writing the grittier elements of this story (spoiler: the hero is tortured), so that they never dwell in depravity. Instead they add to the journey of the character and ultimately add depth to the romance. 

3) Henrik and Else: The protagonists in this story are memorable. I thought about them long after I had finished the book. I loved Henrik’s complexity, his nobility, and the delicate way their love developed. And I loved that Else was a physicist (Women in STEM for the Win!)

You can get this book on Amazon US, Amazon Australia or visit Sarah’s Website for more. I also loved hearing the Danish pronunciations in audiobook narration, which you can get on Audible as I did or wherever you get good audiobooks!

Reviews of other books in this series:

• When Twilight Breaks 
• Until Leaves Fall in Paris

Within These Walls of Sorrow

Within These Walls of Sorrow is about the Apteka Pod Orlem – a pharmacy operated by Poles who wouldn’t abandon their premises in the heart of the Krakow ghetto, choosing instead to risk their lives to serve those within the ghetto walls. Based on a true story, the characters are fictional amalgamations of real people. We see the world through the eyes of a pharmacist, Zosia Lewendowska, and her young Jewish neighbour, who grows into a young woman during the story. We meet the characters in 1938 and stay with them for the next seven years. Seven brutal years.

Like in her book The White Rose Resists, Amanda puts you in the shoes of a witness to history. Readers experience the same shock, disbelief and anger as Zosia, as she witnesses these events and makes heart-rending decisions about how she can best help in the face of the countless atrocities she sees. We experience the hopelessness of Jewish girl Hania Silberman, who’s youth is disrupted by the Nazi occupation and gradually disintegrates as she experiences the organised, yet still somehow arbitrary, cruelty and violence of Nazi hatred for her people.

The subject matter is sometimes difficult to get through, as it should be. These times are hard to write about, but Amanda laces courage, resistance, resilience and redemption throughout the book, proving herself a master. Her research is thorough and meticulous, so as a reader I trust her to honour the Jewish experience while telling a little-known story of Polish resistance.

The story asks tough questions. Primarily, as a person of faith, Jew or Christian, how do you understand the world when the Creator God appears to have looked away from it? How should you respond when brutality and evil infects the whole of your society?  Ultimately Zosia’s motif, a saying of her dead husband murdered by the Nazis at the beginning of the occupation, answers:

“There is evil and there is good and there is a space between. We are given free will to choose where we stand. Evil thrives when good men choose the space between.”

This unflinching book will linger with you for days afterwards. Buy from Amazon US, Amazon Australia or find other links at Amanda’s website (where you can also read an excerpt).

How do you review a book where the joy you took from the story had as much to do with not knowing what to expect as the sympathetic characters and compelling prose? Like this…

Compelling tension

Right from the beginning, a strong sense of unease compelled me through this book. Little dots of intrigue kept me reading to find answers. The book is written in first person, alternating between Sam’s point of view and Annie’s. Like a shot in a movie that heightens the tension by keeping the monster just outside the frame, this creative choice worked well to maintain that creeping sense of disquiet.

Revelation and redemption

I loved the revelation of the true villain of the story. I didn’t see it coming! I felt like Tromp toyed with my expectations a little…and I say (with a slow knowing nod) “Well played, Ms Tromp. Well played.” The resolution brought a broken family back together made for a satisfying and surprising read. 

Romance Rating

5/5 for satisfying love story about a husband and wife reconnecting after war.

I preordered Rachel McMillan’s new book immediately after reading The London Restoration at the end of last year. The Mozart Code picks up where that book left off, in post war Vienna, a city that is divided, starving and a battleground for ideologies…and spies!

Here are the three things I loved:

1 – Vienna

Vienna is a character in this book. If you follow McMillan on Instagram for any length of time, you will know she adores the city. She’s previously written several books set in modern day Vienna and her love for it spills across every page. While the London Restoration had Christopher Wren’s architecture as a lens to understand post-war London, this book sees Vienna through the cultural lens of Mozart. It’s an intriguing way to understand a city. I’ve never been to Vienna, but I feel like I know it a bit better now.

2 – Post-war intrigue and spies

The scale of destruction in Europe–physical as well as cultural–is almost unfathomable from our priviledged postion of hindsight. Vienna is physically divided, but is also at the centre of a giant struggle to determine who will be culturally dominant as the city rebuilds. Will Communism take hold? Will the Americans have their New World way? Propoganda and soft-diplomacy are rife in this war of ideas…and spies (including our protagonsists) lurk in plain sight. The book isn’t necessarily a tale of Cold War suspense, but I enjoyed how that simmering tension impacted the romance.

3 – Marriage of Convenience trope

This trope has grown on me more and more over the years and this is one of the best workings of it I’ve read. It wasn’t forced, didn’t feel fabricated. I liked the way it was slowly revealed. Simon and Sophie were wonderful, strong, memorable characters and the mounting tension between them drew me through. The love scene where the tension broke was beautifully realised with just the right amount of detail. Swoon with a capital S.

Romance Rating

Five out of five love hearts for perfectly crafted closed door romance.

My one line review of The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan in my last newsletter (when I had just started) was simply “everything I love, but in book form”. Now that I have finished the book I can confidently stand by that opinion. I loved this book.

This book is written with so much foodish flair and thorough research into food history that I simply couldn’t put it down.

Here are the three things I loved:

1 – A deep love of cookery

Ryan wrote with a deep appreciation of the cooking process. I don’t know if Ryan is a cook herself, but kind of like the way Jon Favreau learned to cook from chef Roy Choi to get the cooking scenes just right in his movie Chef, Ryan writes clarity and authenticity about the process. The book takes you right into the kitchen and involves you in the cooking process for each of the characters.

2 – Compelling characters who I immediately fell for

Strong female friendships are at the heart of this book. My copy of this book has a quote from Cathy Kelly blazoned across the front that says “the great British bake off set in World War II”. She described it as “a warm hug of a novel”. I actually can’t think of a better way to say it. I loved the people in it and the way their relationships developed.

3 – The recipes

I am a sucker for a book that uses recipes to augment the rest of the content. This book does that so well, with modern, cookable recipes interspersed throughout. You can cook your own version of every dish in the book, from spam and wood pigeon pie to chicken cacciatore, fruit scones or even a flourless chocolate cake.

Romance Rating: This book certainly pulled at my heart, but romance wasn’t a big part of it. It gets 3 out of 5 love hearts for the sweet romance between a maid and an Italian POW.

I’m excited to give away this book in my March 2022 newsletter, so sign up below if you’d like to be in the running!