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(More customer reviews)WWII is raging through Europe, impacting the lives of young and old in major and minor ways. Four women in a small English village are chosen by the author to give modern readers a sketch of that time.
As the men march off to war, plans are made and broken. Women are forced into unexpected roles that they are reluctant to give up to become quiet, demure little things again when the war ends. Husbands and lovers go away, some never to return. Hearts are broken, rations are tight, and sometimes, the enemy has un unexpectedly human face. Yet through it all, the chestnut tree planted by the local tomboy endures and thrives. Sometimes it is the one thing that means life and hope amidst the chaos.
*** American readers, particularly the younger set, will undoubtedly find this a difficult, sometimes bland read. It focuses on the ordinary things of life greatly. Even the extraordinary times will be hard to hold the interest of a younger American woman. However, the author does do an extremely good job of painting a highly realistic portrait of people and times. ***
Reviewed by Amanda Killgore
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By bestselling British writer Charlotte Bingham, The Chestnut Tree is a sweeping, romantic novel about the women who stayed behind in World War II.It is the summer of 1939, and the residents of the idyllic Sussex fishing port of Bexham are preparing for war. Beautiful but shy Judy Melton, daughter of a naval hero; her determinedly feckless friend, the social butterfly Meggie Gore-Steward; seemingly demure Mathilda Eastcott, and Rusty Sykes, the tomboy daughter of the owner of the local boatyard, are all in their very individual ways determined to play an active part in the defense of their country. But knitting socks and bomb-dodging are not what they have in mind.Under the tree on the green the women of Bexham meet to look back on a landscape that has changed irrevocably, and which they have in their own ways helped to alter. None of them are the same, and yet, with the men returning from war, they are expected to slip back into their simple roles of mother, daughter, grandmother. This, more than anything perhaps, is their greatest sacrifice.Only the chestnut tree planted by Corrie at the edge of the village flourishes in the accepted manner, finally becoming the uniting symbol of all that has passed forever.
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