Catch We Must Be Brave By Frances Liardet Depicted In E-Text

I am feeling bereft, What do I read next How can I be swept up again, like I was with this beautiful book I picked up in the library Swept up, wrung out with sadness, picked up again, only to be devastatednce more and then, finally given hope.
What a story. An ordinary story, but so complex, that took five years to write, I have asked for my own copy for my birthday, I need to see this on my bookshelf,
This is a tale that introduces us to a situation caused by the war, A tiny girl, Pamela, is left motherless and scooped up by a young woman, Ellen Parr, who herself has been through the wringer of life and who never wanted children of her own.
But love for a child is an undeniable emotion and Ellens heart is broken more than once in this story, though she tries to be brave,
I loved this book and didnt want it to end, It is beautifully written, “intensely moving”, says the blurb, And “astonishing”. What about this for the description of a wedding kiss “Something extraordinary happened to the room then, It seemed to be flooded with a sudden buzzing light, very fierce, as if a piece of Heaven had been torn down to earth to land all around us.
” Plucked from context, that may sound a little slushy, but when you have read the pages before, the descriptions of Ellens lonely young life, then this image will sing with its optimism.

I almost wept in several places, I dont want to give away any of this story, because, although it is written about a complicated, tangled issue, it is a straightforward plot in many ways, so I wont quote too many examples.
But how could you not weep at this account of parting with a child How could you not be moved when Ellen holds a little dress she left behind to her face “and breathed in.
I held the breath and the dress, ” What observations this talented author makes: “ her lower eyelids were a flat line, the upper lids semicircles, It was the perfect shape of sadness, ” Simple, yet so deep.
The story unfolds in and around Southampton, an area I know, and I loved the pictures painted of village life back in the day, the floods and the sea: “Gales were sweeping down the Channel and yet all those men had to be got covertly out, over the sucking bottlegreen waters of the docks, in moonless secrecy, to face the chop of the open sea” This is a reference to the Normandy landings.

Such characters we are introduced to: prickly, stiffupper lip personalities from another era, And kind characters too. So, in the end, though to borrow a quote on the cover from Jill Mansell reading this book “broke my heart it glued it together again”, Please read it. I recommend and will read more by Frances Liardet,.rounded up.

Even though the war feels as if its at a distance from Upton, a small English village, the villagers are not immune to its impact in this War II story.
As the bombs fall, children are separated from their mothers and fathers, for their safety with hopes of being reunited after the war, sometimes they are separated by circumstances they cant control and there is no hope of reuniting.
A lost, orphaned little girl, Pamela whose life is forever changed, forever changes the life of a young married woman, Ellen who lives in this village, Pamela immediately takes Ellens heart when Ellen finds the sleeping child left alone on a bus and her love for the little girl grows as deep as if the child were her own.


The book begins inand moves back and forth in time to the time of Ellens difficult childhood, back to the time when the evacuations from South Hampton take place and then to the future.
The chapters are dated and the time changes are not difficult to deal with, Ellen knew what it was like to be alone, to suffer hardship, poverty and loss so her empathy and emotional attachment to Pamela is understandable, She doesnt wish for Ellen to be alone and she hopes to keep her, There were parts that moved a little slowly and it seemed a little long at times, so not a solidstars, but I did round up, Overall, it was an moving story with a heart touching ending, While this was a story of a few characters, it highlights a piece of a bigger story of this part of the war when so many were evacuated, especially children.
The author tells of a personal loss in the beginning note and I found her story to be especially moving as it certainly reflects her understanding of loss.
Recommend for those who enjoy historical fiction and a good story filled with love,

I received an advanced copy of this book from G, P. Putnams Sons through Edelweiss.
I kept hearing about this book on Goodreads so I put in my request at the library,   The majority of the book is set in the WW II era, one of my preferred  time periods, and it's set in and around sitelinkUpton England.


We start with a busload of people evacuating Southhampton, heading to the rural town of Upton during WW II,   Ellen Parr notices a small girl sleeping on the bus after everyone departs,   Whose child is this  Where is her mother Ellen gathers the little girl in her arms and makes inquiries of the women but no one claims her.
  The girl, Pamela, was separated from her mother during an air raid,



There are some scenes that are so heartbreaking that it put me in mind of sitelinkThe Light Between the Oceans,   I could actually quote the beginning of that We Must Be Brave's review for this one and it would be appropriate, " This book is filled with sadness and loss, There are happy moments but even those are shadowed by secrets and wrong doing, . . "

This novel spans decades but the majority focuses on the early's time period,   Ellen and her husband Selwyn take in the evacuees, some children stay longer than the adults,   When no one claims Pamela it's Ellen's hope that she and Selwyn may keep her,   The circumstances are well explained in this book but I wouldn't want to reveal spoilers,

Ellen's back story is revealed after a hundred pages and believe me, you may want the tissues handy,   Actually, you just feel so bad for Ellen yet admire her inner strength, This is a fat book ofor so pages and I read it indays time, The characters are well developed, you'd feel as if you known them, The deprivation is keenly described,

Three quarters into the book it slows down a bit but I was never tempted to abandon this story,   I would read more by this author,

There are references to food but not often,   Lots of tea, bread, sitelinkRock Cakes, a meat pie, baked onions, potato pie, sitelinkrissoles and a treacle tart, One the dessert side of things I decided to make a peach cobbler, After so much deprivation I wanted excess,   We even had Blanton's bourbon with it,   Now that's decadent. :


I finished We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet a few days ago, All the emotions I had when I finished the book still lingered, The feelings of sadness, sorrow, hope and most of all the feeling of love still lingered days after I read this book,

This is a story set in England during WWII period and about ayear old girl Pamela being left behind on a bus and Ellen, the main character from the book, picked her up and bought her home herself so the little girl can stay safe.
The story started from there and all the way to present time,

What I love most about this book is the breathtakingly beautiful, whimsical and lyrical writing, It is so tender that it captivates all my emotions, Small details like this from the book “When I reached Williams shed I leaned the bicycle against the wall and, at her insistence, lifted her down, She clung, briefly, like an infant monkey, and the shock of delight was accompanied, as always, by a white flare of pain in my lower back,” have moved me to tears countless time.


This is a beautifully crafted, profoundly moving story about the resilience of love, It touches me deeply and it speaks to my heart and my soul, The ending of the book has also taken me by surprise, I would have imagined it to be a big emotional scene, but the author has taken us on a different path a different route it is quieter, calmer, more tender, which I absolutely adore.
Because regardless what happens, regardless of sadness, tragedy, sorrow, and loss of time, life goes on, It is the people that we love and the people who love us propel us through difficulties, through loneliness and through life,

This book is one of my very favourite reads this year, It is coming out next February and you will not want to miss it, The cover of this book drew me in, After reading that the setting is in England during World War II told me this was a must read for me, I love good historical fiction,

I started out really enjoying the story, I know the author put her heart into this emotional story, But at some point, I just kind of lost interest, When a book starts dragging, I start skimming which I did,

Honestly, the book was good through I expected more, The slowness of the story isstars,

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, It was my own decision to read and review this book, This is a story that not only touched my heart it squeezed it dry, War stories are always tear jerkers and this one was no exception for me, It isnt a front line story, this is a story of a childless woman and an abandoned threeyear old girl wrapped in a blanket and left on a bus.
But the story goes way past the end of the war,
Ellen was married and quite adamant that she did not want a family but the day she found Pamela she knew that she needed this little girl in her life as much as the little girl needed a family.
The relationship that grows between the pair is as close as any mother and daughter with lovely tender moments, Three

years later Ellen learns of a man looking for his daughter after he has returned from the war and she knows in her heart that he is Pamelas real father.

The heart breaking scenes that follow really got to me and greatly impacted Pamela and Ellen, It really made me think deeper about the children that were sent to the countryside through the war years, not always to loving homes and how it must have affected the whole family.
Then after the war the trauma of families being returned that were like strangers coming together, The loss felt by the families that had housed them too and friends that they had made,
The stories follow the lives of Ellen and Pamela and letters that made me cry, The emotions that were built up ready to explode and questions from a little girl now a woman, The end of this story is very, very emotional that had me sobbing, A truly amazing story.
I wish to thank NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for an ecopy of the book which I have reviewed honestly, .