“She could see the stern schoolmistress, rows of desks, pens dipping into inkwells, tracing the script on straight lines.”
It’s been a few years since I’ve read a book by Suzanne Goldring and this one has been sitting on my NetGalley shelf for a while, so I chose it for May’s read for #kindlecrushchallenge 📚✨ I enjoyed it immensely, just as I have done with the previous two books of hers that I’ve read.
The Shut-Away Sisters is a dual timeline story, split between the Great War and the late 1990s, and it’s a real eye-opener into what was expected of women in the early 1900s. Of course, I knew they were predominantly housewives and brought their daughters up to learn how to keep house, but I don’t think I realised they weren’t supposed to go out unchaperoned unless it was to the shops. Even walks in the park were expected to be taken alongside a male member of the family! 😳
I was intrigued by Kate, in modern-day London, discovering the diaries of Florrie, one of the sisters, and learning how they coped throughout the war — dealing with the huge loss of men and the breakdown of her sister, often at the expense of her own happiness 💔 It was so tragic, the secrets that were kept and the lack of anyone to talk to openly. No wonder so many people ended up so emotionally damaged.
If you enjoy war fiction and dual timeline stories, then I would definitely recommend any of Suzanne Goldring’s books 📖 She’s a phenomenal author and such a gifted storyteller. ✨
A very belated thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Shut-Away Sisters 😊
If you enjoyed my review of this book, you might like these by the same author.
https://samsfireside.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-review-for-girl-with-scarlet-ribbon.html
https://samsfireside.blogspot.com/2022/10/my-review-for-woman-outside-walls-by.html
About the Book
Two ordinary sisters. A long and brutal war. A heroic sacrifice…
London, 1915. As German bombs rain down on the East End of London and hungry children queue for rations in the blistering cold, fifteen-year-old Florrie is forced to grow up fast. With her father fighting in the muddy trenches, Florrie turns to her older sister Edith for comfort. But the war has changed Edith. She has grown quiet, with dark shadows under her eyes, and has started leaving the house at night in secret. When Florrie follows her sister through the dark and winding streets of London, she is shocked by what she discovers. But she knows she must keep her sister’s secret for the sake of their family, even if she herself must pay the ultimate price…
Years later Kate, running from her broken relationship, is sorting through her dead aunt Florrie’s house, which she shared with her sister Edith. As she sits on the threadbare carpets, looking at photos of Florrie during the war, she notices the change in her aunt – from carefree young girl with a hopeful smile to a hollow-cheeked young woman, with dark sad eyes.
Determined to put her family’s ghosts to rest, Kate must unearth the secret past of her two aunts. Why is there a hidden locked room in the little house they shared? What is the story behind the abandoned wedding dress wrapped in tissue and tied up with a ribbon? And when Kate discovers the tragic secrets that have bound her family together, will she ever be able to move on?
About Suzanne
Following an eventful career as a public relations consultant, specializing in business and travel, Suzanne Goldring turned to writing the kind of novels she likes to read, about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. She writes in a thatched cottage in Hampshire and a cottage by the sea in North Cornwall.
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