“In a time of war, can love save them?”

  • Book: Beyond A Broken Sky
  • Location: Somerset, Sussex
  • Author: Suzanne Fortin

Review Author: Yvonne@FictionBooks

Location

Content

I just knew that I had to read this book, as soon as it became available on NetGalley. Not only have I read one of the author’s previous books and enjoyed both her wonderful storytelling, and fluent writing style. But the notion of a storyline which included the words ‘stained glass expert’ in the premise, was simply too good to ignore, as this is a profession which runs deep within the veins of the American arm of my own family and has always intrigued me. Plus, the village, farm and chapel locations, are all in Somerset, the county I now call home, albeit that many of the place names used are fictitious. However, there are several more relevant and comprehensive references and acknowledgements at the end of the book, which helped me pinpoint places.

It would be all too easy to let ‘spoilers’ slip into my storyline premise, so this one is deliberately short and sweet…

1945 – Fallen woman, Alice Renshaw, is sent to Telton Hall, Somerset for her forthcoming confinement and the subsequent adoption of her baby. Louise Hartwell is a kind and compassionate woman, as are her small team of staff, her young son and his cousin. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for her older stepson, who has been invalided out of the army and cannot cope with life cooped up on the farm. Bitter and twisted, he despises the situation the young girls find themselves in, but believes them to be fair game after their babies are born, making him unpredictable and dangerous. The only people he hates more, are the two Italian POWs Louise has working on the farm, especially when Alice catches the eye of one of them and her feelings are reciprocated.

2022 – Sussex based, Rhoda Sullivan, is finding it difficult to move on with her life, always waiting for news on social media, which never comes. Her twin brother Dean disappeared 10 years ago just before their 18th birthdays and no one has seen or heard from him since. They had grown up in the care system, although they had been separated by many short stay, foster parent placements.

In her role as stained glass expert, at the living museum she works for, she is assigned to remove and renovate some windows from the farm chapel, at Telton Hall, in Somerset, so that the chapel itself can then be relocated to the museum and the windows re-installed, with the remaining farm buildings destined to be demolished for development.

It soon becomes apparent that the incumbent farmer, Jack and his cousin Aggie, have something to hide, and the chapel seems to hold the key to all their darkest secrets. Jack’s son Nate and grandson Isaac, together with a very inquisitive Rhoda, soon become embroiled in the stoic war of silence being waged by the the farm’s elderly residents, with the three of them being determined to get to the bottom of a mystery which grows deeper and takes on darker meaning and undertones, as time goes on.

When wartime actions collide with present day reckoning, there are spectacular and far-reaching consequences as the timelines merge, and tensions run high. Documents suddenly go missing and there are obviously many family secrets to which Nate is not party, making it difficult for him to protect an increasingly vulnerable Rhoda, as she begins to unravel the web of lies and secrets held so close, for so many years, placing herself in extreme danger.

When Nate and Rhoda, with the help of a very usefully attentive Isaac, finally begin to piece things together and work out just how the two timelines are so intricately balanced and woven together, they have some tough decisions to make, which will affect all their futures.

This emotional, intriguing, atmospheric and immersive, multi-layered storyline, is well researched and structured in short, seamless and easy to navigate chapters. Narrated as an alternating dual timeline story, set in 1945 and 2022, interspersed with some additional sad and poignant letters written by an incarcerated man, to his family at home, far away. Part thriller, part love story, there were plenty of secrets, twists and double twists, which were just waiting to trip me up. Even with the added advantage of knowing much of the history, which Rhoda is not privy to and must piece together little by little, I was still unsure about the final outcome until it happened, even though I was right about the general direction in which things were heading.

There were so many poignant and interesting strands to the storyline, which kept me intrigued – The societal mores of a time when bearing a child out of wedlock was a matter of extreme shame and many mothers found themselves enduring birth away from home, with the knowledge that their new baby was going to be taken away from them immediately for adoption. The bitter hatred of a war invalid and his inability to re-join society, which today would almost certainly be recognised as PTSD. The decision of a group of people to deal lawlessly with a criminal situation, an act which they know they must never discuss, as to name any one of them might see them all found guilty, then to have the strength to keep their silence until their dying days. The total devotion of a father to a son who is on the spectrum and can be quite single-minded and difficult to connect with, but finds himself holding the key to unlocking the puzzle. And a woman, so scarred and damaged by the care system as a child, that moving on alone, or allowing anyone to get close to her, has always caused an emotional trauma.

Notwithstanding my own personal preference for the use of real place names in books, the beautifully nuanced and descriptive narrative and dialogue, afford a wonderfully visual and evocative feeling of time and place, lifting the sights, sounds and smells from the page, as I took my ‘armchair journey’ back in time; then bringing those same senses bang up to date and into the present.

Suzanne’s evocative portrayal of the fragility and frailty of the human mind is carried out sensitively, sympathetically and compassionately, in her well-developed cast of multi-faceted characters, who, whether they are on the side of good or bad, are authentically realistic and genuinely believable to the individual roles which have been created for them. Some are understandably emotionally complex and vulnerable, raw and passionate, with little or no synergy or dynamism between them. Others are unreliable and volatile witnesses, manipulative and duplicitous and whilst my feelings and emotions were really divided right down the middle, I’m not sure that I ever felt connected with, invested in, or identified with, any of them totally, although a new and brighter future is a distinct possibility for Nate, Rhoda and Isaac.

This book definitely ticks all the right boxes for the reasons I read and how I want to feel when I have finished the last word and closed that final page. Thank you for taking me on another amazing journey, Suzanne.

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