Emma's Review: The Last Letter from Paris by Kate Eastham

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

Bruised and gasping for air, Cora Mayhew struggles to her feet, shaking glass from her hair. Clutching a fine silver locket, surrounded by passengers crying out for their loved ones, Cora knows she must find a way to post the heart-wrenching letter she’s been clutching in her hand and get back to her beloved family in America.

For months she’s seen the flashes in the night sky and heard the drone of planes. She came to Paris to search for her birth mother – the locket her only clue – and stayed to work for the secret resistance movement, helping others escape the horrors of war. But now, staggering from the wreckage, Cora fears she too should have left Paris sooner.

Just as her spirit starts to slip, a German soldier finds Cora and saves her life. Max Heller is everything a Nazi shouldn’t be: kind, good-humoured and selfless. As he helps her plot her escape from France, Cora can’t help but fall for him – even though she knows she shouldn’t lose her heart to an enemy soldier…

Then the discovery of a devastating secret about her birth mother forces her to confront a painful truth. Max is the only one who can help her, and the contents of her letter are too important not to make it out of Paris. But should she place her trust in the enemy, or go it alone and risk never making it out alive? And does escaping from Paris mean she will never see Max again…? 

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Emma's Review: The Sea Nurses by Kate Eastham

Reviewed by Emma Crowley

1914. Evie Munro is a Scottish fisher girl, working the herring season from Wick to Great Yarmouth. For Evie, every day is the same – gutting fish at the docks, shoulder-to-shoulder with her friends, followed by fresh bread, a warm whiskey toddy and an early night. But when Germany declares war on Britain, everything changes.

As her village begins to empty of young men, Evie’s life is marked by a heartbreaking tragedy at home. Her happiness destroyed, she vows to join the war effort as an army nurse, caring for wounded soldiers on the imposing hospital ship Britannic.

But as the war rages on and the ship comes under direct fire, Evie’s courage is put to the ultimate test. Can Evie and the nurses of the HMHS Britannic save the day and heal the patients in their care? Or will her life become one more casualty in Britain’s heroic fight for freedom? 

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Emma's Review: When the World Stood Still by Kate Eastham

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

1918. Twenty-year-old Emily Burdon has been training as a nurse in London, learning on the job as she tends to patients from the crowded poorhouses that ring the hospital as well as wounded soldiers returning from the war. She pours her heart into her nursing while she waits for happier times – peace in Europe and the return of her childhood sweetheart Lewis from the Western Front.

But when the deadly Spanish Flu arrives in London on the heels of the war, Emily’s faith and courage are put to the test. All around her men and women in the prime of their lives are wasting away, and until a cure is found there is nothing for Emily and her colleagues to do except make them comfortable, treat them as best they can… and, eventually, ease the pain of their passing.

But then Lewis catches the deadly flu himself on his way back home, just as a new doctor is transferred to head up Emily’s ward. From the distant land of Prince Edward Island in Canada, Dr James Cantor is the first of a generations-old farming family to have left the island, and wartime London feels a long way away from the rugged beauty of his homeland. But despite their differences, he and Emily find common ground in their passion for helping patients and stopping the spread of the disease. But with life forever changed around her and Lewis’ future hanging by a thread, can Emily survive the most terrible epidemic in the history with her life – and heart – intact?

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