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    The Summer Before the War: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Summer Before the War: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Summer Before the War: A Novel
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Summer Before the War: A Novel

    Written by Helen Simonson

    Narrated by Fiona Hardingham

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set.

    East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England's brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha's husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won't come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.

    When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking-and attractive-than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.

    But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha's reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 22, 2016
    ISBN9781101888582
    Unavailable
    The Summer Before the War: A Novel
    Author

    Helen Simonson

    Helen Simonson was born in Buckinghamshire and spent her teenage years in a small village near Rye in East Sussex. Her debut novel, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, was an international bestseller, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick, and was translated and published in twenty one countries. A graduate of the London School of Economics, Helen is married, with two grown sons, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. www.helensimonson.uk

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    • 4/5
      a family and a romance from before the war and during the same. the injustices to women is a main theme as is gay intolerance. these issues give the feeling of a slightly retrospective view of history, which to my mind felt historically disingenuous. if course I am no historian.