The House at Tyneford


 

Author:  Natasha Solomons

Publisher: Plume a division of Penguin Books
Publish Date: 2011
Pages: 359
ISBN No.: 978-0-452-29764-7
Genre: Historical Fiction
Sub Genre: Romance
Reader’s Annotation:
A story of love, family and survival set during WWII is also an elegy for the demise of a elegant country home.
Summary: 
It’s the spring of 1938 and no longer safe to be a Jew in Vienna.  Nineteen-year-old Elise Landau is forced to leave her glittering life of parties and champagne to become a parlour maid, Alice, in England.  She arrives at Tyneford, the great house on the bay, where servants polish silver and serve drinks on the lawn. But war is coming, and the world is changing.  When the master of Tyneford’s young son, Kit, returns home, he and Elise strike up an unlikely upstairs-downstairs friendship that will transform Tyneford  and Elise forever.
Evaluation:
This is one of the best books I have read.  It is a history, a love story and all around great read.  The characters are well developed, the story is believable, and the author does an exceptional job of creating for the reader the setting.
Why I Would Include It: 
An overall good read that would probably appeal to both men and women - for men the historical aspect of the years preceding World War II in Europe and for women, of the course the love story is one of the best I have read.
Rating: 4