%20(1).png)
ABOUT THE BOOK
An unforgettable reading experience about one woman's brave determination to prove she is more than a do-nothing aristocrat and, in her journey of self-discovery and sacrifice, finds a second chance at true, unconditional love. Epic adventure and romance. Strong female heroine.
New York City, 1943: War widow and Best Society’s darling Mrs. Evelyn (Evie) Rousseau Somerset is five months into mourning her husband’s death when her family insists on an untenable plan for her future. Desolate and disenchanted with life, she’s determined to remake herself and prove she’s something more than a useless socialite—regardless of what her senator brother and domineering mother demand of her.
A previous clandestine job at a newspaper provides the escape she’s looking for: a trip to Lisbon, the spy capital of the world, to use her money and connections to rescue a family of German Jews stranded in neutral Portugal. While crossing the Atlantic to Lisbon, she meets handsome and enigmatic Carl Wilson, a cocksure, ill-mannered American musician with an agenda and secrets of his own.
Armed only with sophistication and moxie, Evelyn reluctantly welcomes Carl’s invitation to a new world—one that ultimately lands her as a secret agent for His Majesty’s government.
FIRST LINE
With each step taking her farther away from Vassar College, Evelyn “Evie” Rousseau’s heart sank to her stomach.
GUEST REVIEW by Deborah Brown
Ms. Gardiner's affinity for the WWII era is evident on every page of this complex, riveting novel. The Prologue starts us off in 1939, when Evie Rousseau has just graduated from Vassar. These have been the happiest four years of her life away from her critical and overbearing mother, "Queen Louise." Evie dreads rejoining her High Society family but believes that when she marries Richard Somerset, the son of a British baron, he will protect her from their smothering influence and allow her to soar.
Chapter One jumps forward to 1943, and we learn Evie was widowed five months ago. Her opulent New York City apartment overlooks Central Park, but it doesn’t mean much to her without her husband. They had too little time together before he enlisted – at a time when it seemed unlikely that the U.S. would enter the war overseas – but then Pearl Harbor happened, and now he’s dead. When Evie’s brother, Albert, a U.S. Senator, visits, he urges her to leave the apartment full of memories and move in with their mother. After all, without a husband, a young, sheltered woman like Evie needs someone to care for her. She was groomed to be a socialite, and Albert and Queen Louise have deemed that she’s mourned long enough and must re-enter High Society.
Her brother’s condescension lights a spark in the red-headed Evie, who has kept a secret from her family – when her husband went off to war, she started writing a society gossip column for the New York Daily Spectator under an assumed name. She doesn’t want to resume the society column but instead asks the newspaper’s editor, Hank Drucker, to let her do investigative reporting.
As it happens, Mr. Drucker has the perfect assignment for her, but she must agree to go to Lisbon. Her sophistication, social position, and ability to speak several languages uniquely qualify her to succeed in getting close enough to interview the mistress of the former king of Romania – a hot news story at the moment. In addition, Mr. Drucker asks for what may be an impossible personal favor. His Jewish relatives escaped from Germany into Lisbon, but now it seems likely that Hitler will invade Portugal, and they don’t have the means to get out of the country without help. Evie agrees she will try to find them and get them to the U.S.
Consequently, she flings herself into situations where her courage and instincts are frequently tested, starting aboard the ocean liner crossing the Atlantic. She finds herself drawn to one of the musicians on board, Carl Wilson, despite (or perhaps partially because of) his street-smart manners. But there are dangerous people on the ship, and she’s not certain that Carl is trustworthy. At this point in the book, the point of view starts alternating between Evie and Carl, and the plot’s pace gets even quicker. In Portugal, the peril to anyone of Jewish descent becomes more and more palpable as Evie searches for Drucker’s family and learns the chilling truth about what bigotry has done to this part of Europe.
I can’t overstate the excellence of both story and storytelling. Lots of impressive little details transport the reader back in time: saddle shoes and checkered cabs to swing band music and 40s lingo. From the time Evie boards the ship, the book evokes a tense Casablanca-like atmosphere. All the characters are vividly drawn. Romance is nicely incorporated into the plot without feeling forced.
Although there is a second book to this series, this is a stand-alone story; no cliffhanger. There is some Mature Adult content. Highly recommend!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cat T. Gardiner is a Long Island girl who has fallen in love with the romance of an era known as the Greatest Generation. She and her husband, now Floridians, love to explore the 1940s home front and military experience as living historians, wishing for a time machine to transport them back eight decades.
Inspired by those everyday young adults who changed the fate of the world, she writes about them, taking the reader on a romantic journey. Cat’s WWII-era novels always begin in her beloved Big Apple and surround the reader with the sights and sounds of a generation.
Second to her husband, her passion is writing Historical Fiction, WWII-era Romance. Her debut novel, A Moment Forever, was a 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award Romance Finalist. Cat has just published (April 2, 2024) the "Flying with the Swallows" duology, a two-volume WWII Historical Romance, Women’s Fiction. Volume One: The Lisbon Affair; Volume Two: Rendezvous in Berlin. She is also the author of fourteen Jane Austen-inspired contemporary works.
A member of the Tampa Branch of The National League of American Pen Women, Cat takes her readers on a swell journey at The 1940s Experience™ blog and gallery where she shares her writing, reenacting, and the stories of those who lived through the trials and joys of the era. It is her belief that everyone should have an understanding of the 1940s experience. You can connect with Cat via social media and her website.
GUEST REVIEWER, Deborah Brown
Debbie Brown discovered Jane Austen fan fiction (JAFF) in 2012 and now reads it voraciously at a pace of more than one hundred books a year. Her background as a former high school English teacher is apparent in her many reviews. In 2018, Christina Boyd brought her onto the team that created Rational Creatures as the anthology's sub-editor, and Debbie has been editing and proofreading books for numerous well-known authors in the JAFF world ever since. She is also a recreational golfer, a devoted grandmother, and a professional singer married to a guitarist who has been her partner in life and music for forty-seven years (and counting.)
I completely agree, Debbie! Well said and fab review. :)