Ashes by Christopher de Vinck is set in Belgium 1939. We meet two young women who despite growing up in separate worlds, they are inseparable. Simone is the daughter of the Catholic War Hero General Lyon, whilst Hava comes from a devout Jewish families. The advancement of Nazi troops force the girls to run away from their lives as they know them. This story shows the test of friendship, loyalty and love and is actually based on true events!
Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of Historical Fiction when it’s WWI/WWII based. I find it very same-y, probably because all we’ve ever learnt about in History classes are these wars. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the readability of this book. It’s character driven (which I love!) and the author’s emotive writing really allows you to sympathise with their situation.
Each chapter begins with a little historical fact/quotation and I really think that helped placing the story in the narrative of the war. The book itself isn’t fast paced by any means but as I said, it’s really readable! My only real negative was the ending of the book, which I thought was a bit rushed and lack-lustre... I definitely thought it could’ve been fleshed out slightly better. Nevertheless, Ashes was a good read and it was actually refreshing to read a war story not set in Germany.
More on Instagram: @sazloureads
Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of Historical Fiction when it’s WWI/WWII based. I find it very same-y, probably because all we’ve ever learnt about in History classes are these wars. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the readability of this book. It’s character driven (which I love!) and the author’s emotive writing really allows you to sympathise with their situation.
Each chapter begins with a little historical fact/quotation and I really think that helped placing the story in the narrative of the war. The book itself isn’t fast paced by any means but as I said, it’s really readable! My only real negative was the ending of the book, which I thought was a bit rushed and lack-lustre... I definitely thought it could’ve been fleshed out slightly better. Nevertheless, Ashes was a good read and it was actually refreshing to read a war story not set in Germany.
More on Instagram: @sazloureads