Hi, everyone!
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE GIRL FROM PROVENCE by Helen Fripp on this Bookouture Blog Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section, and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
South of France, 1942. Twenty-one-year-old Lilou is selling lavender honey in the village square when the Nazis arrive in her beloved Provence. And when her best friend is dragged away simply for being Jewish, Lilou is horrified. As the village begins to take sides, Lilou secretly swears through angry sobs that she’ll sacrifice everything to fight for what’s right.
Drawn in to the French resistance, soon Lilou is smuggling hidden messages in fresh-baked loaves of bread and meeting Allied pilots in remote moonlit fields. She lives in fear that Kristian, a blue-eyed German soldier, knows about her work – but does he keep her secrets because he is undercover, too?
Everything changes when Lilou is given her most important task: to keep a frightened little boy, Eliot, hidden safe in her farmhouse. All alone in the world, Eliot refuses to speak as he clutches his treasured children’s book close to his chest. Inside is a beautiful story of stars, planets and the night sky. But why is this innocent child the one, among thousands, who Lilou must save?
When she is told Eliot’s book will help her decipher coded messages, Lilou knows he must have knowledge that could change the course of the war. But the day Kristian arrives at her farm searching for hidden Jewish families, Lilou is terrified that Eliot is in more danger than ever…
Can Lilou trust the one person who could tear her world apart? And will she ever help Eliot find his way home?
A totally stunning and heartbreaking read about the incredible sacrifices ordinary people are forced to make each day in wartime.
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
THE GIRL FROM PROVENCE by Helen Fripp is a beautiful as well as heart-breaking historical fiction story set in rural Provence France during the entirety of World War II. This standalone book features a young woman who wants only to live her life on the family farm, but the war sweeps her up and changes her life forever.
Lilou is a country girl who loves her family’s lavender farm and the bees who produce their honey. She roams free with her brother in every stream, ravine, and mountain in the area. When the Nazis roll in to occupy her town in 1942, she believes nothing will change if they ignore them, until they take her brother for forced labor in Germany and send her best friend and his mother to the whispered about camps for Jews..
Lilou joins the resistance and takes on many tasks around her country home. When she is assigned the care of a special little Jewish boy, named Eliot, her world changes once again. With his love of the stars, numbers, and special copy of The Little Prince his father gave him, Lilou learns Eliot is wanted by the Nazis for information his father left with him.
Will Lilou be able to protect Eliot and help him uncover the secrets his father left for him?
This story has so many emotional ups and downs with characters that could walk right off the page. Lilou is the main protagonist, but Eliot, Kristian and Marie-Madeleine are all important characters, also. Even the secondary characters in this story play memorable roles at pivotal points. I fell in love with the entire cast of characters and cried with their losses. (Especially in the last quarter of the book, I kept the tissues close.) I loved the inclusion of Antoine “Tonio” de Saint-Exupery and his book and the way it is important to this story, not only for this plot, but also the parallels to the lessons the Little Prince learned.
I highly recommend this enthralling historical fiction and I am looking forward to reading other books by this author.
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About the Author
I love delving into the past and uncovering new stories, and in my writing, the tiniest historical detail can spark an idea for a whole chapter. My female characters rail against the social constraints to which they are subject and often achieve great success, but they are of course flawed and human, like the rest of us. It’s the motivations, flaws, loves and every-day lives of my characters that I love to bring life, against sweeping historical backdrops – and I will find any excuse to take off and research a captivating location or person for my next story.
My first novel is set in the Champagne region in France, and I’m currently working on my next one, set in late eighteenth century Paris. I spent a lot of time in France as a child, have lived in Paris and spent a year with my family in a fishing village in South West France, so that’s where my books have ended up being set so far. Who knows where next!
Social Media Links
Website: https://www.helenfrippauthor.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hfrippauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/helenfripp
