The Secret Diary by Anna Stuart
Genre: Historical fiction, Contemporary fiction, Post-WW2, Dual timeline
Read: 28th July 2021
Published: 3rd August 2021
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Two women. One house. And a wartime secret that spans decades…
Norfolk, 1945: Only a few months ago Nancy Jones was fighting for her country as a gunner girl. Now she’s struggling to adjust to her responsibilities as a gamekeeper’s wife. After a whirlwind romance, Nancy is deeply in love with her handsome husband Joe but there is still so much they don’t know about each other. When a secret from Nancy’s war years threatens to resurface, will the terrible truth about the worst night of her life shatter their new marriage?
Norfolk, 2019: Devastated by the sudden loss of her husband, Lorna Haynes escapes to the beautiful but crumbling Gamekeeper’s Cottage. There, she stumbles upon a locked room. When she enters, it’s like going back in time. A soldier’s uniform hangs on the back of the door, the flowery wallpaper still intact, the spindle of the record player frozen and ready to play. At the back of the room, Lorna discovers a red, leather-bound diary in a hidden compartment of a desk drawer.
As Lorna battles with heartache, she takes comfort in reading the ink-stained words. Turning the pages of the old book, she learns of the incredible bravery of the woman who lived in the house decades before her. And discovers a shocking wartime secret that will change the course of her own life…
Fans of The Nightingale, The Alice Network, and Lilac Girls will love this unforgettable, poignant tale of love, loss and courage during the darkest days of war.
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Anna Stuart's fascinating dual timeline tale THE SECRET DIARY.
There is always, it seems, more than one place to keep a secret...
In this case it is in a red leather-bound diary which is at the heart of this beautifully told story that spans the decades.
2019: Lorna Haynes, recently and tragically widowed, arrives at the Gameskeeper Cottage in Langham with her two young sons Charlie (9) and Stan (5) in tow. Norwich holds too many memories of life with Matt so Lorna has escaped to the country for the summer to find some healing and learn how to move on without her loving husband.
Upon arrival, Lorna is greeted loving by her her newly married mother Mary to the kind and gentle David, a retired GP and inherited owner of Gameskeeper Cottage. Mary leads them to the back of the house to the annex, an add-on to the quaint old thatched cottage after the Great War. And as soon as Lorna opens the door it is like stepping back in time. The annex serves as a separate living area with a kitchenette, living area as well as bunk beds for the boys and a bedroom for herself. It is, however, untouched from the forties in decor with it's old furniture, cerise wallpaper even down to the old wireless sitting on the mantle.
Once settled, Lorna takes in the history of the room and all therein, even the dressing table with its triple mirror. She opens the drawer and reaches in unconsciously for a hairbrush that isn't there. Instead she feels the telltale ridge of a secret compartment, commonly found furniture pieces of this era. With a tug and a pull and up comes the flap revealing a rich red leather-bound book that was obviously a diary.
Tentatively Lorna opens the pages and begins to read, transported back to 1945 and a different time...
1945: The war is over! And to commemorate the occasion, Nancy has bought herself a beautiful red leather diary to preserve the memories of her new life with Joe here at Gameskeeper Cottage. When Joe had first brought her home to this beautiful little cottage with the rose arboured entry and the slightly "squint" thatched roof, Nancy couldn't wait for her new life as a gameskeeper to begin.
But it seems her in-laws had other ideas. Ted and Betty were very welcoming of her as the daughter they never had but having lived through two wars, they had firm ideas on where her place should be. Not out on the estate shooting pheasants and getting her hands dirty. She may have been a gunner girl at the nearby Langham RAF airfield during the war, but in civilian life she was a wife with a home to keep, meals to make and laundry to do. There was no time nor place for her out on the estate with the men.
Joe, however, knew of Nancy's desire to be a gameskeeper and what's more he'd supported it. At least that's what he said. He'd fallen in love with a woman full of life that could he really see her tied to the kitchen and laundry and a life of domesticity? And then came 1st Ocotber - the first day of open season - and there was Nancy in her best frock serving finger food to the men who were about to begin the season. And then she saw Merry, daughter of Lord Langham, dressed and ready for the shoot. When questioning why Merry, being a woman, was allowed on the shoot and yet she wasn't Ted told her because she was aristocracy. Nancy was livid. She was so angered that Joe stood there silently beside his father and did nothing to back her up that she threw the most shocking words at him in front of the villagers joining the shoot before storming off to pack her bags and leave Langham.
However, that stand-off proved to be a turning point and life in the chocolate box little cottage turned something of a corner as Joe and Nancy made some compromises with Ted and Betty which served to enrich their lives in ways they didn't think possible. But still Ted was adamant on one thing - that guns have no place in a woman's hands. Nancy must then resign herself to a life of partial domesticity and helping out on the estate...but her desire to be a gamekeeper still burns deep within though Ted remained unmoved on the matter.
So Nancy poured her heart out on the pages of her leather-bound diary - her loves, her joys, her sorrows and frustrations...and even the secret that she and her fellow gunner girls swore to keep. Then in a moment of clarity, she ripped the pages of those entries out but not wanting to destroy them, sought another hiding place for them. For there is more than one place to keep a secret...and keep it she must.
This historical tale has a unique story to tell and Anna Stuart has captured it beautifully, weaving the two eras together seamlessly from present day to post-war Norfolk through the secret diary that has Lorna discovered. She discovers that Nancy is not so different from herself despite the seven decade gap between them and what the diary reveals is the difficulty that Nancy had adjusting to civilian life after the adrenaline of that as a gunner girl.
THE SECRET DIARY is a tale of transition for both women as they find their feet in a world so different to the one to which they had grown accustomed and must now get used to living without. Both women are stronger than they realise as they come up against challenges that force them to question everything they thought they knew. The traditional lifestyle to which Nancy finds herself within when she yearns to break out of the mould tradition had shaped for women. I can't understand why others find this aspect so frustrating to read about because it was just how it was then. Just because we live in different times doesn't make those that lived before us wrong. It was just a different way of life and while times have changed, not all of it is good. While people may look back and think men had no respect for women with their traditional views, it is in fact the opposite. Men had far more respect for women then than they do today and it is because they respected them that they preferred to maintain the traditional roles. It's not something that people today can understand and that's fine.
The present day story was good but probably not as engaging or as equally strong as Nancy's, which I loved. Each time I was in the present day, I found myself wanting to go back to the diary and lose myself to time and uncover the secret Nancy and her friends had vowed to keep. It was the past that was true escapism...for both Lorna and myself.
The story weaves seamlessly from past to present and back again in alternating chapters with Nancy's predominantly through her diary which is always a perfect segue into the past. It is so expertly done the reader feels as if they are the only ones privy to Nancy's thoughts having discovered the diary themselves.
A hugely enjoyable read, THE SECRET DIARY is the post-war tale of one woman trying to transition to civilian life and another endeavouring to find the strength to move on in the wake of tragic loss. I loved it so entirely that I didn't want to leave Nancy behind or the characters I had come to know and love.
Perfect for fans of historical WW2 fiction and dual timelines such as Lorna Cook and Kathleen McGurl.
I would like to thank #AnnaStuart, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheSecretDiary in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Having studied English literature at Cambridge university, she took an enjoyable temporary trip into the ‘real world’ as a factory planner, before returning to her first love and becoming an author. History has also always fascinated her. Living in an old house with a stone fireplace, she often wonders who sat around it before her and is intrigued by how actively the past is woven into the present, something she likes to explore in her novels.
Anna loves the way that writing lets her ‘try on’ so many different lives, but her favourite part of the job is undoubtedly hearing from readers.
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