The Girl Without a Name by Suzanne Goldring
Genre: Historical fiction, WW2
Read: 4th November 2020
Published: 5th November 2020
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
September 1940. As the bombs of the Blitz fall on London, Ruby and Stevie are falling in love. United by a shocking experience when they were evacuees, Ruby believes that she understands Stevie like nobody else can. But then Stevie is sent abroad into danger and as Ruby waits, desperately, for letters with foreign stamps that never come, she begins to fear that he is lost forever.
August 2004. Billie has rushed to her father Dick’s hospital bedside. A terrible stroke has robbed him of his speech, and he is a shell of the man he was before. But when Billie finds a crumpled black and white photo in his wallet of a smiling, dark-haired girl she doesn’t recognise, Dick frantically tries to talk. Billie knows that he is trying to tell her something important, and she must ask the questions her father cannot. All she has to go on is the name he is just able to mumble. Ruby.
Billie tracks down Ruby’s aunt, her only surviving relative, and learns that Ruby’s life contained great love, but also great tragedy. Billie is determined to find out what happened to this brave woman, last seen leaving her home for a secret weekend away. Why did nobody miss her? And how is she connected to Billie’s beloved father? Can Billie lay the ghosts of the past to rest, even if it means revealing the darkest secrets of her father’s life and breaking her own heart?
A completely compelling and heartbreaking read, this is the story of the courage of a young woman in wartime and another woman’s quest to right the injustices of history. Fans of The Letter and The Nightingale will be hooked on The Girl Without a Name.
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Suzanne Goldring's latest heartbreaking historical novel THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME.
"She left home, with the man she loved, and was never seen again..."
Wow! Where do I even begin? Suzanne Goldring never fails to disappoint. As with all her books, I was captivated from the very first page right up until the very last...and even then the story will remain with me. THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME has a little of everything - history, romance, mystery, tragedy, love, loss - all woven together by the deft hand of its author. And it is hard not to be touched by Ruby's story.
August 2004: Seventy-seven year old Dick Stevens sits down with his lunch when the news flashes on the TV. A devastating flood has hit the West Country not seen since 1952 and Dick is transfixed to the images on the screen as he is suddenly drawn back into the past. He points to the screen and cries "Ruby!" before an excruciating pain in his head renders him limp and lifeless, his eyes still seeing the horrifying images before him - both past and present. This is how his eldest daughter Billie finds him, slumped in his chair, the images still playing out on the screen. He points to them but all he manages are the unintelligible sounds "Roo...eey".
Whilst her father recuperates from his stroke in the care home, Billie discovers some old black and white photographs...one of which was of a young woman secreted in the back of his wallet. She doesn't recognise her and her father is unable to speak clearly enough to identify her, but it is not her mother. The photographs, some of which she has seen before but knows nothing of the story behind them, are from a time before her parents met. Some when her father was a child and some from his time in the National Service, something he never speaks of.
When Billie shows her father's sister, Joan, the photos she is able to determine one of them as a school photo taken just after they were evacuated to Devon during the early part of the war. The young woman in the other photo from her father's wallet Joan identifies as Ruby Morrison, a young girl she was billeted with in Devon and whom her father (known as Stevie) had befriended. She estimated that Ruby was about 16 in the photo which would have been around the time Stevie served in Palestine with the National Service. But why did her father still carry a photo of a girl he used to know? Had she been a girlfriend? And where was she now?
Billie knows nothing of her father's early life and with these photos in hand, she decides to try and uncover the mystery.
Devon 1939: The beginning of World War II saw children evacuated to the country to protect them from the impending onslaught of German bombs and ten year old Ruby Morrison was amongst those being relocated. Disappointed that her two best friends Grace and Joyce were not joining her, she found herself clinging to a friendly older girl who took her under her wing. Upon reaching Devon, families from far and wide came to view the children and choose the ones they wanted but still Ruby clung to her new friend Joan who assured her they would be billeted together. Joan's younger brother Stevie was picked off by a grumpy looking farmer's wife with another strapping young lad and they rode off together on the back of the farm truck, excited by their new adventure. But Ruby remained by Joan's side and the two girls were taken in by the kindly Mrs Honey.
Life in Devon was in complete contrast to that which Ruby had known in London. Here they had the vast countryside, fresh air and green hills as far as the eye could see. Mrs Honey even kept chickens that kept them in ample supply of eggs which were otherwise rationed and replaced by the powdered kind. Despite rationing, food was fresh and not in as short supply as it was in London and Ruby grew used to the fresh vegetables they had daily in stews and soup Mrs Honey cooked up. So when her mother came down to Devon for Christmas and suggested she return home as there had been no bombs, Ruby feared that she would have to leave her new home behind. But Ruby didn't want to return to London.
But sadly the following year, Ruby's mother was killed in the Blitz and her aunt Ida came down to Devon to collect her and took her back to London without even saying goodbye to Joan. Her aunt Ida and uncle Reg ran a pub called the Victoria and Albert so there were none of the home comforts she had known in Devon living above the pub. Before long, Ruby becomes an unpaid skivvy to her aunt as she is expected to wash and dry glasses and sweep the sticky floors on a daily basis. However, things seemed brighter when she runs into Stevie, whom she'd met in Devon, and together they would sneak off to the pictures on the afternoons her aunt thought she was at the library. And what began as friendship soon turns to love.
When Stevie joins the National Service at the end of the war and is sent abroad to Palestine, Ruby writes to him constantly and his replies are filled with anecdotes and love. But then his letters begin to dwindle and he no longer signs them with "all my love" or "your Stevie". Then Ruby discovers he has returned and never came to see her, but nothing would prepare her for what she was about to witness. Her Stevie, her one true love, the one she was saving herself for...broke her heart. Ruby walked out and never saw him again for some five years.
And when she did, it was like the flame had never gone out. Her Stevie was back. But was he really? Was he the same man that had left her for Palestine five years ago? The same boy she met in Devon? The same boy who had promised to build her a doll house? But Ruby believes that only she understands Stevie like nobody else can.
And all she wanted was the boy who promised to build her a dollhouse. But war changes people.
Alternating between the past and the present, THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME is a heartwrenching story of Ruby's coming of age through wartime Britain, her first love and all the emotions and experiences that come with it. But it is also Billie's journey for the truth in her desperate need to uncover the secrets her father has kept buried for over 50 years. When she comes across some old newspaper clippings her father has kept in a box at the back of her wardrobe detailing a devastating flood in Devon in 1952, she begins to wonder if the more recent flood has brought up memories of her father's past.
Contrary to its title, THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME is kind of a misnomer because you only discover the reason behind the title towards the end of the book. It isn't the main story as such but it is an important link.
I never tire of Suzanne Goldring's beautifully told historical novels and I thought it would be tough to top her debut "My Name is Eva" which was beyond brilliant, but I have to say that THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME comes pretty damn close.
As well as being a well written and beautiful historical tale, the book also illustrates what was then known as "shell shock" or "battle fatigue" but what we now call PTSD. Men didn't talk about their experiences or their emotions that went with them, and instead they turned to alcohol, women or violence. This was illustrated early on in the book with the farmer who violently abused Stevie, scarring him both physically and emotionally. The farmer had suffered in the Great War and as a result became an angry violent brute. Stevie's experience with "battle fatigue" was different, but it was brutal all the same.
Suzanne Goldring's writing style is easy to read and all of her characters are well developed. It is so easy to get swept up into the story and lose yourself completely within the pages. I laughed, I cried and I cheered along with the characters. I even wanted to smack a couple.
The two timelines are woven together seamlessly bringing the reader to a surprising and thought-provoking ending which I did not see coming. THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME is captivating, compelling and heartbreaking at times but on the whole is a heartwarming read that will be sure to evoke emotion.
Absolutely brilliant read, I thoroughly recommend THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME to fans of historical wartime fiction.
I would like to thank #SuzanneGoldring, #NetGalley, #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheGirlWithoutAName in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Following an eventful career as a public relations consultant, specialising in business and travel, Suzanne Goldring turned to writing the kind of novels she likes to read, about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Whether she is working in her thatched cottage in Hampshire or her seaside home in North Cornwall, Suzanne finds inspiration in the secrets hidden by everyday life.
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