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Book Reviewed by:Set in France and America, News of Our Loved Ones is a haunting and intimate examination of love and loss, beauty and the cost of survival, witnessed through two generations of one French family, whose lives are all touched by the tragic events surrounding the D-Day bombings in Normandy.
What if your family's fate could be traced back to one indelible summer?
Over four long years, the Delasalle family has struggled to live in their Nazi occupied village in Normandy. Maman, Oncle Henri, Yvonne, and Françoise silently watched as their Jewish neighbors were arrested or wordlessly disappeared. Now in June 1944, when the sirens wail each day, warning of approaching bombers, the family wonders if rumors of the coming Allied invasion are true - and if they will survive to see their country liberated.
For sixteen-year-old Yvonne, thoughts of the war recede when she sees the red-haired boy bicycle past her window each afternoon. Murmuring to herself I love you, I love you, I love you, she wills herself to hear the whisper of his bicycle tires over the screech of Allied bombs falling from the sky.
Yvonne's sister, Geneviève, is in Paris to audition for the National Conservatory. Pausing to consider the shadow of a passing cloud as she raises her bow, she does not know that her family's home in Normandy lies in the path of British and American bombers. While Geneviève plays, her brother Simon and Tante Chouchotte, anxiously await news from their loved ones in Normandy.
Decades later, Geneviève, the wife of an American musician, lives in the United States. Each summer she returns to her homeland with her children, so that they may know their French family. Geneviève's youngest daughter, Polly, becomes obsessed with the stories she hears about the war, believing they are the key to understanding her mother and the conflicting cultures shaping her life.
Moving back and forth in time, told from varying points of view, News of Our Loved Ones explores the way family histories are shared and illuminates the power of storytelling to understand the past and who we are.
News of Our Loved Ones may be fiction, but it is reminiscent of so many war survival stories, the legacies of which still impact us today. It is a story of war and loss, but it's also a story of family and love and how our stories shape the next generation...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Jordan Lynch).
News of Our Loved Ones is a poignant tale of family and loss during World War II. The story follows members of the Delasalle family and their close friends, focusing in particular on Geneviève, the eldest daughter. Geneviève's story stretches from her hometown of Caen, France to Paris, and then eventually to America as she makes her home there with her new husband, Lieutenant Peter Miller, an American soldier who was stationed in Paris. His and Geneviève's whirlwind romance is reminiscent of the many wartime weddings between American troops and the European women that became known as "war brides."
While the term "war bride" can be used to describe any woman who marries a foreign serviceman during a time of ...
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