Lulu Taylor – She Reads Novels

The first thing to say about this book is that it’s definitely not the light summer read you would probably expect from the cover and title. It’s actually a tale of lies, betrayal and treason set during the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany. It’s the first Lulu Taylor book I’ve read and I really enjoyed it.

The novel opens with a brief section set in the modern day, introducing us to Lottie Conway, a young woman who has grown up under the shadow of a family scandal – one linked with the actions of two women at the start of the Second World War. The Conway name has become tarnished by association, although the details have always been vague. When a new blockbuster film is made about the incident, Lottie decides it’s time to speak to the one person who knows exactly what happened: her grandmother, Dinah.

Dinah’s story begins in 1931 when her wealthy friend, Marina, invites her to a dinner party. Here she meets Marina’s cousin, William Conway, whom she hasn’t seen since they were children and they quickly fall in love and decide to marry. The marriage isn’t welcomed by everyone – William’s mother refuses to even speak to Dinah, which she assumes is due to her poor background – but the two are blissfully happy and head to Germany on their honeymoon. They’re planning to visit Rosemary, another of William’s cousins, at her school in Munich, but first William wants to visit the site of the Battle of Blenheim. However, they are not the only British tourists in the area that day…Winston Churchill is also visiting the battlefield, having some time on his hands after resigning from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

The Conways’ lives are changed forever by that chance meeting with Churchill, who believes that William, who works for the Foreign Office, can be of use to him in providing information on activity in Germany and the British government’s response to it. But they also make another new acquaintance in Munich who will have an equally big influence on their future fates: Ernst Hanfstaengl, known as Putzi, a close friend of Adolf Hitler, leader of the increasingly powerful Nazi Party.

The Forever Summer is quite a long book but was a faster read than I expected as I was so gripped by it. I loved the way the author obscures the true intentions of the characters from us, leaving us questioning who can and cannot be trusted. A good example of this is Victoria Gauntlett, one of the women who brought shame on the Conway family; it’s never quite clear whether Victoria is spying for Britain, spying for Germany, a double agent or just an innocent young woman. We only see her through Dinah’s eyes and Dinah is hardly an unbiased observer, as she is jealous of Victoria’s close friendship with William. By the time we reach the end of the book, then, there are lots of secrets to be revealed and some surprising twists to look out for along the way.

What I found most interesting, though, was the portrayal of the mood in Munich during the build to the war. When Dinah first visits for her honeymoon in 1932, she can sense a tension in the air even then; there are already men on the streets wearing brown uniforms with the swastika insignia and disturbing rumours of their plans for Jews. When she returns just three years later, the atmosphere has become much more oppressive; there’s a stronger military presence and Nazi flags line the boulevards and hang from shops and houses. I was also fascinated by the depiction of Putzi Hanfstaengl, a real person although I don’t think I’ve come across him in fiction before. Most poignantly of all, the book explores the question of whether another war was inevitable or if anything could have been done differently during that period that may have prevented it.

I’ll have to investigate some of Lulu Taylor’s other books; I had previously dismissed them as probably not being for me, but I’m interested in trying more of them now.

Thanks to Pan Macmillan for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.