Caroline
Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat
Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short.
Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II,
Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German
lover.
Determined
to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her
family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters
that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.”
Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace
and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the
correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and
one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of
a coming world war.
Each
letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt actually a traitor and
Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past?
Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and
heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed
everything.
In
this rich historical novel from award-winning author Katherine Reay, a young
woman is tasked with writing the next chapter of her family’s story. But
Caroline must choose whether to embrace a love of her own and proceed with
caution if her family’s decades-old wounds are to heal without tearing them
even further apart.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“Carefully researched, emotionally hewn, and written with a sure hand, The London House is a tantalizing tale of deeply held secrets, heartbreak, redemption, and the enduring way that family can both hurt and heal us. I enjoyed it thoroughly.”— Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars and The Book of Lost Names
“An
expertly researched and marvelously paced treatise on the many variants of
courage and loyalty . . . Arresting historical fiction destined to thrill fans
of Erica Roebuck and Pam Jenoff.”— Rachel McMillan, author of The London
Restoration and The Mozart Code
“Reay’s
fast-paced foray into the past cleverly reveals a family’s secrets and how a
pivotal moment shaped future generations. Readers who enjoy engrossing family
mystery should take note.”— Publisher’s Weekly
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Thanks for sharing, Heather! Take care, Laurel
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