House at Tyneford

Yesterday, I had a wonderful day with it ending at my book club meeting at Olive Garden to discuss the book The House at Tyneford, by Natasha Solomon. This story is based on the happenings in WWII.The writer gathers inspiration for this novel from the history of her great aunt and her grandmother who had escaped from Europe to England to become a "mother's helper" and from a manor house that used to sit in Tyneham, England on the Dorset coast.

We are introduced to Elise as she is about to embark by herself to England from Vienna to become a maid at Tyneford House. She leaves behind her married sister who is heading to America and Anna and Julian (mother and father) who are patiently waiting Visa's to leave Vienna. Plus probably the only one who understands her the maid at her house, Hildegarde.

She leaves all that she knows and travels by herself to a country that she does not know to a job she does not care to do. But with all that she accepts her fate and works hard. She also comes to the attention of two men in the household, Kit and his father. The story goes on with an ending that you may or may not like, with deaths that you may or may not suspect.

It is a book that will attract several groups, WWII buffs who study the in and outs of war coming to England and the cicumstances of the Jewish population. Also, people who enjoy British writing, and those who enjoy watching shows based on British lifestyle, such as Downton Abbey.

I liked the book because I think that it is amazing to me that during the time of WWII, everyone thought that the war would last only a few months, no on realized or turned a blind eye to the happenings during that war. I always think of the thousands of people who walked past citizens in a variety of countries and no one thought anything was going on or were afraid to say anything because they knew what was actually happening. But that brings us to people who actually did help and offer some solution to the problems happening in Europe. And the people who lost loved ones because they could not escape fast enough.

I also liked the main character Elise, she is terrified but also spunky. Who else throws stones at an enemy plane? She is a young adult but there are times she acts like a child and other times as someone who is wise beyond her years. A good book