Margaret Leroy explores a forbidden friendship in the frightening world of Guernsey during the German occupation in the Second World War. With her husband fighting on the frontline Vivienne begins a relationship with a Nazi soldier - to her it feels like a betrayal but can she fight against it or is love stronger than everything else around? Historically accurate and the storytelling is terrific, so much so it will keep you gripped to the page.
Margaret Leroy's novels The Downing Girland The Perfect Mother are also featured on the Lovereading site. Click the titles to view them.
A forbidden love...a private war. There's a sudden scatter of birds in the sky. I flinch. Little things seem violent to me. And in that moment my decision is made. It's 1940, Guernsey. Vivienne de la Mare waits nervously for the bombs to drop. Instead comes quiet surrender and insidious occupation. Nothing is safe anymore. Her husband is fighting on the frontline and the facade of being the perfect wife is cracking. Her new life is one where the enemy lives next door. Small acts of kindness from one Nazi soldier feel like a betrayal. But how can you hate your enemy when you know his name, when he makes you feel alive, when everything else is dying around you? Vivienne is fighting her own private war. On one side, the safe, secret, loving world she could build with her captain; on the other, virtuous loneliness and danger. It's time for Vivienne to choose: collaboration or resistance...
Margaret Leroy studied music at Oxford. She has written four novels, one of which was televised by Granada and reached an audience of eight million. Margaret has appeared on numerous radio and TV programmes, and her articles and short stories have been published in the Observer, the Sunday Express and the Mail on Sunday. Her books have been translated into ten languages. Margaret is married with two daughters and lives in Surrey.
