"A heartbreaking new novel of grief, family and the enduring power of love from the author of We Must Be Brave
When I open my eyes I see a small dark shape at the end of the pew under the window. A piece of cloth, a handkerchief perhaps? No, a woman’s headscarf.
The blue is bright, Mediterranean.
I can’t for the life of me remember seeing it before. But all the same it seems familiar. More than familiar. As if I’ve held it in my hands before. As if it’s been next to Yvette’s skin.
James Acton has come to the village of Upton to begin again. As his grief over the death of his wife eases, he hopes to find new purpose as the vicar of this small, Hampshire parish, still emerging from the long shadow of the war.
James’s own war was in the Western Desert, where he fell in love, first with the thrill of being a hurricane pilot and then with Yvette Haddad, the captivating, enigmatic young Alexandrian with a penchant for dangerous driving.
The past has a way of clinging on to us, and even as James embarks on new beginnings, finding friends – and even love – among the people of Upton, the secrets he has held on to so tightly for years threaten to break loose. But Yvette had secrets too, and as James follows a trail that leads him back through the landscape of their marriage, what he discovers about both of them will change everything …"
"We can’t choose who we love.
We can choose who we fight for.
‘A powerful story that proves how love itself requires courage’ Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing
‘Storytelling at its best’ Sarah Winman
‘The perfect book club read’ AJ Pearce
Ellen Parr has always been sure she never wanted children. But when she finds a young girl asleep and unclaimed at the back of a bus fleeing the Blitz in Southampton, everything she once believed is overturned.
As she takes Pamela into her home, the little girl cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she thought she wanted, for in uncertain times it seems the only certainty is love.
But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never hers to keep…
We Must Be Brave is an epic and intensely moving novel about the ways we rescue one other, and the astonishing tenacity of the human heart."
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