The Winter Guest: The perfect chilling, gripping mystery as the nights draw in

£8.495
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The Winter Guest: The perfect chilling, gripping mystery as the nights draw in

The Winter Guest: The perfect chilling, gripping mystery as the nights draw in

RRP: £16.99
Price: £8.495
£8.495 FREE Shipping

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Description

This is an amazing story of Helena and Ruth, 18 year old identical twins raising their three younger siblings in a small town in Poland during WW2. They are identical in looks but they are very different from each other in their behaviors. Ruth is more domestic and lady like, Helena is definitely more adventurous and used to the outdoors. As they grow older, they begin to have secrets from each other. A stirring novel of first love in a time of war and the unbearable choices that could tear sisters apart, from the celebrated author of The Kommandant's Girl. Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn’t be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day.

A stirring novel of first love in a time of war and the unbearable choices that could tear sisters apart, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan’s Tale An 18-year-old Polish girl falls in love, swoons over a first kiss, dreams of marriage—and, oh yes, we are in the middle of the Holocaust. Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena’s concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades. Ms. Jenoff excels in her vivid portrayal of the deprivation and corrosive fear that afflicted those dwelling under Nazi aggression. The sisters are inherently different, convincingly drawn within the paranoia and seething anti-Semitism coursing under their village’s façade. Their claustrophobic insularity, however, can dampen the narrative at moments - until Helena awakens to possibilities beyond those she has known during her increasingly disquieting trips to Krakow. Her discovery of a secret and the tragic events that ensue shatter her confidence; as she fights to find meaning in a world descending into darkness, The Winter Guest proves compulsive in its race to a desperate denouement. The finale offers a moving testament to the suffering that so many endured during the war.

Customer reviews

To begin with, the first chapter (after the introduction) sets the story in 1940. And then Sam Rosen shows up. Sam is a downed American airman in the Polish countryside. One would think that with a storyline like this it would be a really emotional and interesting read. Unfortunately it was flat and emotionless. The conversation were dull and the actions were slow. Some of the events that happens deserved a better reaction from me but I just didn't feel. I couldn't feel the romance or any sympathy towards the characters, except maybe for Helena at times. Ireland has quite a tumultuous history spanning generations. We all have stories to tell passed on from grandparents and great-grandparents of a very different country, of a time when unrest stretched from North to South. Irish men and women joined the British army during The Great War in a bid to help fight against tyranny and to help protect other nations in their fight for their independence. Many of these Irish soldiers, on their return, expected that Ireland would achieve Home Rule and, in time, become an independent country, finally free to make its own decisions. But as we know this was not to be. The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 brought about the Irish Civil War, one that left its scar on the generations that followed. Ireland had already been through great upheaval in 1916 during The Easter Rising, followed by The War of Independence which raged through the land from 1919 to 1921. There was a bitterness in many homes throughout the country and nobody escaped its wrath.

The Winter Guest by W.C. Ryan was published January 6th with Zaffre Books and is described as ‘a gripping and atmospheric murder mystery with a classic feel’. I thoroughly enjoyed A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan so I was thrilled when the opportunity came my way to read a copy of The Winter Guest, courtesy of Gill Hess. La mamma è molto malata e ricoverata a Cracovia, mentre il padre è morto travolto da un carro; ora sono le ragazze a dover portare avanti la famiglia e a fare da padre e da madre ai piccoli. The Anglo-Irish community had their homes burned from under them by the IRA in a bid to remove ‘the foreigners’ and return the land to the Irish who were tenants on their own soil. Poverty was rife within the cities but was very much more evident in the rural communities. There are bad things happening and Helena witnesses them, yet there's so little emotion here that even things that should have been frightening just fell flat. Example: the hospital. You hide under the bed while a nurse is raped on top of it and it warrants a mere three or four sentences? Then it's never mentioned again? I would think the trauma of that would evoke a lot more reaction. As I said above, there's a lot more emotion when it comes to the sisters hating on each other or blabbering about their family history than actual traumatic events. Perhaps a lukewarm or even an aimless plot can be excused if were to be redeemed by another facet of the novel. This, however, was not the case. The writing is hardly refined artistry; in fact, it’s amateur.

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It did make good, interesting reading and I wanted to see what happened, although at times it was a little unbelievable. For example, getting in touch with the resistance itself was a little too easy to be believed. There are events that happen after the end of the main story which are only revealed in the epilogue, almost as one liners really. Although these events wrap up the story well, they just did not have that ring of believability to them.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
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