Idgie Says:
The description of the book is a bit misleading. The story is about Emmy and the turns her life takes and the guilt she endures after she feels she concentrates too much on her own goals, at the expense of others. The younger girl fills in gaps in the beginning of the book and the end, but that's really about it.
It is an interesting story of a young ambitious girl who basically raises herself during WWII, makes mistakes as young girls do, and struggles to thrive during these harsh times.
I will say that I would not want to live in London during the WWII bombings, the descriptions of what the people endured are frightening.
Secrets of a Charmed Life
Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades…beginning with who she really is.1940s, England. As Hitler prepares to wage an unprecedented war on London, a hundred thousand children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence.
Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed…
In bookstores everywhere February 3, 2015
New American Library Publisher