It's reported that in the Second World War, French food rationing was more stringent than that of any other Occupied country in Western Europe.

The following foods were restricted: bread, meat, cheese, fats (lard, oil, etc.), sugar, milk, chocolate, and milled products. Other essentials could be obtained but it was hard to get them.

Can you imagine trying to operate a pâtisserie with the shortages listed above?

Throw into the mix an increase in stunting and tuberculosis morbidity due to lack of proper food and living arrangements.

This storyline definitely depicts the vulnerabilities, economic/ social decline, and psychological consequences of war.

The story begins with a small family operating a pâtisserie during the Nazi occupation in France.

André goes out to hunt for butter and his wife Mireille and four-year-old son Frederic stay behind at the pâtisserie. Andre returns to find Mireille is missing. A Jewess, Emilie, is in his shop.

While André hunts for his wife, he encounters his parents, recognizes how friends become deadly enemies, and examines his love for his son - stating, "He's my life."

I believe, in the end, André comes full circle as he finds common ground by taking his father's advice. Brings to the forefront that when parents love you, they sacrifice much, for your well-being.

I received a copy of this book from the author Michael Whatling. ( )

I really liked the characters that drove this story, learning more about them, and watching their pasts and futures unfold. I loved that André decided to take a risk by helping Émilie, but I was a little confused by some of their decisions that seemed unnecessarily risky given their situation. The mystery of what happened to Mireille was intriguing, and the danger of a Nazi investigating her disappearance adds to the tension. I thought Whatling did a great job bringing the story to life, and it's easy to believe the characters were real people, and that if you could travel back in time you'd be able to meet them. A great historical fiction. ( )

occupied-France, bravery, deceit, bitterness, loss, love, family, family-dynamics, friendship, culture-of-fear, historical-novel, historical-research****

The publisher's blurb is a great hook, but only hints at the pathos and self delusion contained in the story of the essence of five people and those all around them in a time of occupation in a sleepy village in France. The wife disappears, the husband is undone, the fugitive becomes important, the child cannot comprehend the changes in his world, the bookseller sees them all as his family. It is a wrenching tale that kept me reading on relentlessly.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley. Thank you also to Mortal Coil Books. ( )

This is another great WWII novel, it is a bit different than the others I have read in that it is a bit more of a storyline amongst family life during that time. André Albert has a pastry shop that him and his wife run, although with the war and rations, it is getting harder and harder to fill their bakery with various pastries. They’ve learned to cut back and how to change recipes to use what is available to them as time goes on and the war starts to accelerate.

After striking out for baking supplies for the bakery, André returns home to an odd, unsettling scene. Their non-talking four year old son is outside, the door to the baker is left wide open and his wife is no where to be found. But her apron is laying in the street, abandoned in a haste it appears. Frantic, and becoming more and more worried, André cannot find her, and no one will talk. Everyone claims they did not see anything and no one is helping him.

Not only does he have a missing wife, and upset child missing their mother- upon his return a starving, dirty Jewish woman was hiding behind one of the bakery cases. Quickly realizing he is all on his own in finding his wife, he does the right thing and allows the woman to stay- she is helping comfort his son after all and has showed she means no harm. André has a caring heart, and his wife would want him to help this woman as well.

As André begins to do his own interviewing of others in the area, he starts to fear the worse. Not only was his wife more than likely taken against her will, there is a missing Jewish woman the Nazi’s are looking for, and they’ve been in his bakery acting as though they want to help look into his missing wife, or are they? Is this worth risking his and his son’s life and will he ever find his wife, or the truth behind what happened to her?

Thank you to the author for sending me a free copy in exchange for my honest review. I enjoyed that this novel was a different side of the war, in that it had mystery involved but the forefront of what was also happening to families and those who risked everything to save others. I would suggesting adding this to your WWII novels pile! ( )

The novel is set in occupied France between October 19 and December 5 of 1943. André Albert, a pastry chef, returns home from shopping to find his young son Frédéric playing in the street with no sign of his mother Mireille. Hiding inside the pâtisserie is Émilie, a young Jewish woman. André, desperate to find his wife, is willing to do anything to find her and bring her home, though his search often leads him into danger, as does his decision to shelter Émilie. Though Émilie helps to look after Frédéric, she is reticent to speak about her past, and it soon becomes obvious that she is keeping secrets from André.

The book’s focus is not on wartime battles but on the difficult choices people face during wartime. Much of the conflict is internal; more than one character faces choices which are “cliffs with only rocks below.” How can André get information about Mireille without drawing dangerous attention to himself? Does he have a moral duty to help Émilie, a stranger, even though helping her endangers him, his son, and the entire neighbourhood? Does a person have an obligation to speak up and defend a friend or reveal a truth if doing so puts one’s life in jeopardy?

What the book also shows is the ways war transforms people. Neighbours turn on neighbours or do nothing to help. A man may rail against those who choose silence and lack the will to help others but, later, faced with “not only an obligation to his friends, but a moral duty, as well” finds that his own “resolve is fragile as a bird’s wing.” One woman, because of her traumatic experiences, “resigns herself to endure life like it’s an affliction, anticipating nothing more than the bittersweet comfort of memories.” Another woman cannot see to be forgiven, “Not after what she’s had to do – what she’s been made to do. What she did to others.”

A strong element is the complex characterization. André, faced with the unexplainable absence of his wife, experiences a wide spectrum of emotions. He’s confused and “imagines scenarios where Mireille could leave them, willingly or not.” He’s hopeful that he can find out what happened to her and bring her home, but as time passes, he gives in to despair. Certain actions he takes the reader may find difficult to approve, but given the circumstances, they are realistic.

There are some events which I found problematic. At one point André leaves Frédéric entirely alone in the house when he goes to the church? A person would be accepted as a member of a Resistance cell without any real hesitancy? A man tells some Resistance fighters about a munitions factory as if it is news when it would probably have been common knowledge because a location with guards around its perimeter would surely have caught people’s attention? Monsieur Durant gives money to Émilie without asking why she needs it? On a Tuesday, André is supposed to be going to work, but he just doesn’t show up because he has a plan to follow someone, and there are no consequences to his truancy? André decides not to go to a friend to apologize after an argument because “Already too much time has passed” when the argument took place only the previous evening?

There is an aspect of style which bothered me. Though the author is obviously trying not to use clichéd comparisons, some of the similes and metaphors are awkward. Some examples: “A burst of their laughter skims across the water, taunting as the key to a dungeon cell dangling just out of reach.” And “Her stomach heaves like she’s swallowed one of those squalls that come out of nowhere to capsize everything in its path.” And “he’s lost somewhere under the surface of an ice-covered lake. Whatever took place seems distant to him as the planets.” And “Memories . . . she’d thought forgotten, return like an executioner to his duty after pausing to sharpen his axe.” And “What started as a pebble in a shoe, soon will be the size of a rock under the surface of a calm sea waiting to cause shipwrecks.” (As a former English teacher, I couldn’t help but notice the incorrect punctuation in these last two examples.)

Some of the comparisons are meant to fit the thoughts of a particular individual, but I still found them stilted. A seamstress, for instance, has difficulty broaching a topic in conversation and so thinks, “It would be easier to fit a wedding dress on a spider”? André, the pastry chef, “eases into sleep again like he’s being lowered into a cave black as a Périgord truffle” and “scrutinizes each face with the meticulousness of making a dozen identical entremets” and compares his tension and excitement to “what Cordon Bleu chefs feel before meal service”?

Though not flawless, the book has much to offer. It excels in its depiction of characters faced with very difficult choices. And there are some surprising twists which the reader will not see coming but which are appropriate.

Thank you to the author, Michael Whatling, for a print copy of the book.

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