A Flower That's Free

From Inside Cover: Exotic as a tiger lily, Kate Kingsley leaves the harsh beauty of her Kenya home as she sets out for London seeking adventure. But the transition from new world to old is unnerving, and Kate chafes against the rigidities of an upper-class English household: her crusty grandfather, shy Uncle Aubrey, and Aunt Dulcie, a fragile femme fatale struggling to reconcile present respectability with past notoriety. Even the frivilous glamour of 1930's London offers little scope for Kate's restless energy. Swept away by handsome Lawrence Drake, Kate views marriage as escape - until their idyll on the island of Malta is shattered by the turmoil of war. Confused by the wild passion she senses in a kindred spirit, rogue journalist Bill Maguire, Kate must summon up all her resourcefulness. Only as the world is liberated from the darkness of World War II does she find a kind of freedom. Against a backdrop of global turbulence - the Berlin Olympics, the rise of facism, the bloody shambles of Dunkirk - Sarah Harrison re-creates a world at war, with characters whose tragedies and triumphs are consistently compelling. Fit successor to her highly popular first novel, The Flowers of the Field, this is an utterly captivating story. It's a thick novel, a little bit daunting at first, but I am glad I finally picked it up. Once opened, the story is captivating enough to keep me going. While there is romance, it would trivialize the book to call it a romance. The tale starts with Kate, but it expands to include many people, directly or indirectly linked to her, from an impoverish family in East End to a woman in post-war Berlin. The essence of that era is authentically captured, rich in little details and emotions. The war images, told from different angles, are especially harrowing.