Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Occupied Ukraine, 1940. Zirka has been sewing ever since she was a little girl. But now, every stitch contains a spark of rebellion. Together with her cousin Perla, as war rages around them they sew vital secret messages for the resistance into embroidered shirts.
Every night, Zirka leaves to meet with her fiancé in secret and Perla pours her heart out into her diary. Nobody else knows that Perla is living under false papers. If the two women are caught, or betrayed, it would mean certain death…
Lviv, 2022. As Ana gazes around at the peeling wallpaper, she hopes this little shop will bring her closer to the memory of her grandmother Zirka. After Ana’s mother suddenly refused to see or speak to Zirka decades ago, Ana has been desperate to find out what terrible secret tore them apart.
A diary hidden in a long-forgotten kitchen drawer tells of a secret sewing society vital to the war effort long ago. Ana knows she must continue her grandmother’s legacy of resistance now another war has come to her beloved country. But she’s no closer to finding the truth about her own family… and when she does, will she learn that some wartime secrets are too dangerous to uncover?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Secret Sewing Society to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Siobhan Curham is back with her latest book, The Secret Sewing Society. It has the most beautiful cover with a very striking image which is symbolic of the themes throughout the book. It was so refreshing to see a book based on World War Two that had a different setting in this case Ukraine. Siobhan did a phenomenal job throughout of bringing the history and culture of this beautiful yet troubled country to life and it was only as I was reading the end notes did I discover the connection she has to Ukraine which made this read all the more poignant. This is a work of fiction although heavily rooted in fact and you read through the chapters with a growing sense of dismay that war is happening again. Everything we have seen and heard on the news helps you connect to the events described throughout. But you desperately wish this wasn’t the case. I’d have loved nothing more than to be reading the more modern day point of view without the main character having to endure conflict, danger and terror but sadly this can’t be the case. But we live in the hopes that one day soon this will come to fruition.
Told in the dual timeline format the story moves back and forth between WW2 and the present day and the similarities between both time periods are very striking but for all the wrong reasons. History is once again repeating itself in modern times and it quickly becomes evident that this country has for many years endured periods of invasion where the Ukrainian spirit and culture is under threat of being quashed and eradicated but the secret society of the title is determined not to let this happen and will play their bit in the country’s fight for freedom using their messages of bravery, strength, love and courage. The chapters are short and snappy providing just enough information to whet your appetite yet at the same time the detail is rich and informative before the end of each chapter moves you back to the present or vice versa. At no point did I feel there were any lulls in the book but it also wasn’t jam packed with action and reveals throughout. It didn’t need to be at all and I was grateful that this wasn’t the case. Instead, the characters are allowed to develop and you can really get inside their hearts and minds and understand their motivations and actions.
In the present day, 2022, Ana is feeling a bit of the empty nest syndrome as her son has left for America. She remains in England facing the challenges of her mother Viktoria entering the final phases of her dementia battle. Ana reluctantly visits her in the nursing home but the experience is never pleasant as Viktoria had treated her with contempt and disdain throughout her life and the disparaging comments persists despite her illness. Why had Viktoria found it so hard to love Ana and why did she have a bad relationship with her own mother Zirka whom Ana was more or less brought up by? In a moment of lucidity and warmth Viktoria tells Ana to take a battered old chocolate tin and within it lays an apology and the news that she has been she has been left a property in Lviv, Ukraine. Viktoria passes away and Ana travels to Lviv beginning a journey of finding herself in the present and reconciling events from the past.
I enjoyed reading of Ana’s story as she tries to piece together just what the property was and why she has been left it. But news breaks that the Russians are attacking and this initially turns everything upside down but she more than made the best of a terrible situation. Given Lviv proximity to the Polish boarder she felt she was safe enough that she could remain and transform the property enough to make it habitable. I thought she was mad to be honest, staying on given what circumstances were unfolding but the ties to the past and finding out the truth about both her mother and grandmothers heritage were enough to make her want to stay. She soon discovers the shop was once run by her grandmother Zirka as an embroidery and dress making store and given her own love of fashion design and as certain things are discovered a remarkable story of resistance, dedication and strength begins to emerge she starts to bring the shop back to life. In doing so, she finds pieces of herself she hadn’t fully realised were missing and along the way a romantic element emerges all thanks to her jotting down her thoughts and feelings in a journal. Here many parallels between herself and Zirka and their situations begin to emerge.
As much as I did enjoy reading about Ana in the present day and understood her inclusion to bridge the gap between past and present, it was Zirka’s story in the past that had me completely enthralled. She resides in Lwow (modern day Lviv) with her father who is a lecturer and librarian. They both still deeply mourn the passing of Zirka’s mother but she does her best to continue the tradition of the dress making shop which specialises in the vyshyrankas, the traditional Ukranian shirt in which images, symbols and messages of strength and defiance are hidden within. Zirka was a fantastic character who only grew in strength the more that was thrown at her. First the Russians invaded then retreated when the Germans arrived and life as they had known it in their beloved Ukraine irrevocably changed forever. A long lost cousin, Perla, arrives from Poland fleeing from Jewish persecution and here is were the secret sewing society of the title begins to make sense. Going back to their grandmothers time a family story emerges which makes Zirka question everything that she knew. There is a story here waiting to be told one of several throughout the book which all emerge into one heartbreaking yet fascinating conclusion which provides plenty of food for thought.
Perla was hard to warm to because of the way she acted but then I did grow to understand her more and the relationship that developed between her and Zirka was very special even if at times they rubbed each other up the wrong way and that was because of ridiculous things that Perla did. I liked how Perla’s viewpoint was told through her diary entries as it offered a different stance on things that I would have just blindly accepted had they only been told through Zirka. There is so much that happens in the element of the story focusing on the past that to say much more here would give away far too much. Suffice to say that embroidery, resistance, romance, danger, mystery and intrigue fill the pages and make for a real page turner.
The Secret Sewing Society was a brilliant read and one in which I feel I have learned so much about the history of Ukraine and how as a country and individually they still bravely battle on today in order to preserve their culture, heritage and future. I would definitely recommend this passionate, awe inspiring, heartbreaking and compelling read.
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