HERONFIELD by Dorinda Balchin

Amazon UK £0.99 £10.99

Amazon US $1.22 $19.01

Amazon CA Kindle $? / $30.65

Family Drama  / Adenture 

WWII

England / France

Heronfield, the family home of the Kemshall family, is temporarily a convalescent hospital during World War II, and it forms the backdrop to an amazing read.

David is the family hero, an RAF pilot who took part in the Battle of Britain. His brother, Tony, is a Dunkirk survivor, but Tony has other battles than that of the war to contend with. His father believes him a coward, he has to fight for the love of a woman, and all the while to keep a very secret secret, well, secret. Tony is, in reality, a British spy working in occupied France.

The novel is a big book, it spans six years, with the paperback version making a hefty 400 pages. That can be a lot of story to plough through – from Dunkirk to Liberation, via concentration camps and the horrors and deprivations of war. But when the story is engrossing, and the reader wants to know what happens next to intriguing family members, who notices length?

I particularly liked the way some of the chapters opened with News Slots, relating what was happening beyond Heronfield. Cleverly done, Ms Balchin.

@ Helen Hollick

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