In Second World War Bath, young, naïve wireless engineer Will meets Austrian refugee Elsa Klein: she is sophisticated, witty and worldly, and at last his life seems to make sense . . . until, soon after, the newly married couple's home is bombed, and Will awakes from the wreckage to find himself alone.
No one has heard of Elsa Klein. They say he was never married.
Seventy years later, social worker Laura is battling her way out of depression and off medication. Her new case is a strange, isolated old man whose house hasn't changed since the war. A man who insists his wife vanished many, many years before. Everyone thinks he's suffering dementia. But Laura begins to suspect otherwise . . .
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The sirens woke Elsa but not me. 18 APRIL 1942
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(@LittleBrownUK, 25 March 2021, 416 pages, ebook, #ARC from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed)
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I loved the author's books A Boy Made of Blocks and Days of Wonder so I couldn't wait to read this book, get my heart busted again and turned into a gibbering emotional wreck. Those are the best days. Like his other books, this is a very emotional read and I quickly became invested in the characters. I enjoyed the fact the story bounces between WWII and the present and gradually reveals the links between both. The book blends science fiction and a love story which I haven't come across before and which works really well even though it sounds very strange. I cried a few times reading this because it squeezed my heart so much.
