Author:Catherine Law
For over forty years Rose Pepper has kept her own counsel about the story of her past - especially her wartime past - wanting the truth to stay hidden from her two daughters. But the discovery of some letters, still unopened after forty years, threatens to betray all her secrets. Her story really begins in Cornwall during the war, where she has been evacuated to work as a landgirl. Here, against the most impossibly romantic landscape, she falls in love with a young Czech soldier, stationed at the local US army base - both of them trying to forget that Rose is already engaged to a man who is a friend of her family. This man, cold, controlling and vengeful, will not let her go, but eventually, in the chaotic aftermath of the war, Rose and her lover flee to Prague, where their troubles really begin in earnest, for the Communists are taking over and it is every man and woman for themselves in a city riddled with informers.
The Matthew Hervey books have a way of getting under your skin...reveals a man who is very much of his time -and one to have beside you when riding into action.
—— Elizabeth Buchan , DAILY MAILOne for the fans, who will not be disappointed by Mallinson's winning combination of scrupulous research and derring-do...with the French in front and the Russians behind, Hervey's your man.
—— Antonia Senior , THE TIMESTaut with suspense ... a compelling novel.
—— Historical Novel SocietyOne of the great First World War novels, about a German soldier in a French village, who falls in love with it. It’s full of criticism of how the war was conducted by Germany, so when Hitler came in, it was burnt.
—— Michael Morpurgo , Daily MailThe best of German war books so far
—— J. B. PriestleySchlump…was considered anti-nationalistic, anti-heroic, philanthropic, pacifist, pro-French, humanistic, European, quite good-humoured and well-written. A bright book from a dark time… The book burners were completely right: an un-German book
—— Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungGrimm’s major achievement is his ability to balance such unsentimental accounts of people’s wartime sufferings alongside the unfailing delight of Schlump’s gauche charm
—— New Books in GermanA thoroughly unconventional First World War novel, part fable, part documentary […] non-nationalistic, Francophile, astute, romantic and accurate
—— FAS[Grimm] combines elements of the picaresque with all the bleakness of First World War literature
—— Stuttgarter Zeitung
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