Review
Sixty years ago World War Two spread its deadly tentacles from the fields of battle to the most remote and peaceful corners of Britain. Coverack, a small Cornish village was not immune. The incongruously-named Paris Hotel had lost most of its holiday trade but occasionally an unexpected guest blew in from the grim world outside. Christian Le Gall, escapee from the fall of France, now working for the French Underground Movement, came - and fell in love, not only with Cornwall, but with Maizie Blackacre, landlady of the Paris, trying hard to keep the hotel running while caring for two bewildered and vulnerable evacuees. But Maizie is married and well-aware of her marriage vows. Husband Sam, a merchant seaman, is a bully and a brute, but still Maizie feels she owes him loyalty; and fights against her growing attraction to Christian. As time passes the struggle for Maizie and Christian becomes harder, and a softening on Sam's part, after a brush with death, adds to Maizie's difficulties. There is graphic recall of those far-off, perilous and reckless days, when at any moment death might strike - even in as remote an area as rural Cornwall. Against the fluctuating progress of Maizie's and Christian's romance risks are taken, lives lost, hearts broken. This is a reminder that even in the harshest of those harsh days a flicker of hope and promise never quite died; and in the end better times did come back. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
Maizie and her husband run a hotel in Cornwall. When World War II starts, Sam joins up. Struggling to keep the hotel going, Maizie takes on two evacuees, glad of the company. Her happiness grows with the arrival of a French soldier wounded at Dunkirk but she soon becomes torn between duty and love.
