Sisters at War
By Clare Flynn
1940 Liverpool. The pressures of war threaten to tear apart two sisters traumatised by their father’s murder of their mother.
With her new husband, Will, a merchant seaman, deployed on dangerous Atlantic convoy missions, Hannah needs her younger sister Judith more than ever. But when Mussolini declares war on Britain, Judith's Italian sweetheart, Paolo is imprisoned as an enemy alien, and Judith's loyalties are divided.
Each sister wants only to be with the man she loves but, as the war progresses, tensions between them boil over, and they face an impossible decision.
A heart-wrenching page-turner about the everyday bravery of ordinary people during wartime. From heavily blitzed Liverpool to the terrors of the North Atlantic and the scorched plains of Australia, Sisters at War will bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart.
Publication Date: 1st May 2021
Publisher: Cranbrook Press
Page Length: 314 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Cranbrook Press
Page Length: 314 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
MY THOUGHTS
Hannah may be at home in Liverpool, but her husband is not. Instead, Will Kidd is on a ship, carrying out convoy missions, missions that are incredibly important in keeping Britain in the war against Germany. Hannah doesn’t see it that way though. Hannah sees Will’s job as something consistently taking, and keeping, him away from her.
When his ship is attacked and sinks, Will and the crew are taken aboard an Italian ship, one carrying an old friend, Paolo. Will convinces Paolo to come back with him, and Paolo agrees, the idea of sailing together again a joyful thought. When Paolo goes to Will’s home for dinner, though, the joy of sailing with Will is overtaken by another joy, one even greater and more important – Hannah’s younger sister, Judith.
Hannah and Will may only have been married a short time, but their time together has been even shorter, confined to the days Will is in port before he is swept away from her again, leaving her frightened and lonely. No matter how much it pains Hannah, not knowing when she might see her husband again, or whether today would be the day she got a knock at the door and someone’s deepest condolences, Will belongs at sea. He is used to the rocking of the boat, to the work and the men. He is used to looking out over the side, watching for the tell-tale signs of U-boats, or looking up to scan the skies for enemy planes. Despite all of this, though, he loves Hannah dearly, and he treasures the brief time he gets to spend with her.
Since Hannah and Judith’s father killed their mother, they have both been living with Sam, a man Hannah was briefly, although illegally, married to – a wedding forced on them by their fathers, which neither of them wanted. The trauma of losing their mother, and then their father being sentenced to death, wedged a gap into the bond that Hannah and Judith used to share. Judith closes herself off and Hannah loses sight of their friendship as she finds herself not paying attention to the changes Judith is going through in her life. As the story progresses, both women go through their own trials and their relationship strengthens and wanes. While the love for a sibling, especially one as close to you as Judith was to Hannah growing up, is strong, Hannah lets that love control her. She gives up her life, things she loves, for Judith countless times, and her sister does not always give her the thanks, or even acknowledgement, she deserves.
The love that grows between Paolo and Judith is beautiful. However, being an Italian in England in the early 1940s, their togetherness cannot last long as Paolo is arrested under the suspicions of being a fascist. His case is not helped by the fact that he is a seaman, who left his vessel to join an English one. He is almost the model stereotype for an Italian spy and is shipped away from Judith. Much like Will leaving Hannah on a ship, Paolo leaves Judith, yet while Will has a choice, Paolo is forced into the lower confines of the ship. The conditions Paolo and his fellow Italians are forced into on the boat are so incredibly terrible that I found myself feeling incredibly sorry for them all, and even for the German prisoners of war who were on the same boat. The abuse they suffered was almost unimaginable, and almost none of them deserved any of what they got. A lot of the Italian prisoners were ordinary men, men who had lived in England for most of their lives, or who had signed up to fight in the war. How could such men have done any of what they were accused of? Yet, the government was taking no chances, and with such little preparation before the arrests, there were no procedures in place. The whole thing was so incredibly disorganised, there was no holding anyone accountable for such cruelty.
There are scenes in this novel that are so unbearably heart-breaking they will have you in tears, not able to believe that they are true and hoping against hope that a miracle will happen and set everything right again. The horrors that those in Liverpool's face, with most nights spent curled up in an Anderson shelter, and the sheer adrenaline holding back panic as a missile hits your boat is depicted so wonderfully that you can almost feel the fear and unease, can almost taste the ash, smoke and seawater in the back of your throat. This is the kind of book that you can’t put down, for if you do, you will only pick it back up again to continue reading.
The pages simply couldn’t turn fast enough. If you haven’t read this book, I implore you to grab yourself a copy as soon as possible.
Clare Flynn
Having lived and worked in London, Paris, Brussels, Milan and Sydney, home is now on the coast, in Sussex, England, where she can watch the sea from her windows. An avid traveler, her books are often set in exotic locations.
Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of The Society of Authors, ALLi, and the Romantic Novelists Association. When not writing, she loves to read, quilt, paint and play the piano.
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Thank you for a terrific review. So glad you enjoyed the book
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