Intimate, atmospheric and emotional story set in WW2
All her life Connie’s had the urge to break away, to explore what life has to offer away from the streets and factories of Coventry. She doesn’t know what form this new life will take or how she’s going to do it. What she does know it that she’s got to do it. Spirited, determined and reckless, the Second World War brings Connie the opportunity to seek what she’s looking for but the price for that opportunity is a high one. Forced by circumstances to be totally self-reliant and desperate to leave bad memories behind, she joins the Women’s Timber Corps and finds herself posted to The Forest of Dean to train as a ‘lumberjill’.
Chance brings together Connie and Seppe, an Italian POW, who is trying to escape his own demons. Thoughtful and sensitive, Seppe is initially cowed by his traumatic relationship with his violent father whose malevolent presence seems able to reach even into the confines of the POW camp.
‘The spikes of his father’s rancour were undimmed by the flimsy paper. A spiral of venom rose from the lines, the sheen of anger, pride and sheer vicious temper bitter in Seppe’s mouth.’
Despite being haunted by guilt and by what he witnessed during the war, Seppe gradually grows in inner strength as he finds acceptance from the local community. For Connie and Seppe, the forest provides shelter from the outside world – quite literally at times. However, for those born and bred in the forest, the war, and those it brings in its wake, is an unwanted incursion into their lives.
‘Those evacuees are still out here, causing chaos in the school. And…we’ve got Yanks in the forest, whole regiments of them…The other big change is that we’ve got POWs up at Broadwell.’
The war is also a threat to the very existence of the forest itself with the constant demands for timber to support the war effort.
‘The forest itself warned them of loss even as they chopped it down. Bloody great gaps staring at them in the very woods that had sheltered them all their lives, and people pulled from this life into a new world that swallowed them up.’
I loved the way the author made the forest another character in the story with almost human qualities: ‘Amos pushed in amongst the branches until they almost held him in an embrace.’ I thought the author struck the perfect balance between historical fact about wartime events and the story of Connie, Seppe and the other inhabitants of The Forest of Dean. Sometimes events erred slightly on the side of convenience but I think we must allow an author some artistic licence and, who knows, sometimes things are just meant to be. Finally, I always admire an author who is brave enough not to spell out the conclusion of a book but to let the reader imagine it for themselves.
I thought this was an outstanding debut. Shelter has an authentic period atmosphere with wonderful characters who take you on an intense but heart-warming journey.
Chance brings together Connie and Seppe, an Italian POW, who is trying to escape his own demons. Thoughtful and sensitive, Seppe is initially cowed by his traumatic relationship with his violent father whose malevolent presence seems able to reach even into the confines of the POW camp.
‘The spikes of his father’s rancour were undimmed by the flimsy paper. A spiral of venom rose from the lines, the sheen of anger, pride and sheer vicious temper bitter in Seppe’s mouth.’
Despite being haunted by guilt and by what he witnessed during the war, Seppe gradually grows in inner strength as he finds acceptance from the local community. For Connie and Seppe, the forest provides shelter from the outside world – quite literally at times. However, for those born and bred in the forest, the war, and those it brings in its wake, is an unwanted incursion into their lives.
‘Those evacuees are still out here, causing chaos in the school. And…we’ve got Yanks in the forest, whole regiments of them…The other big change is that we’ve got POWs up at Broadwell.’
The war is also a threat to the very existence of the forest itself with the constant demands for timber to support the war effort.
‘The forest itself warned them of loss even as they chopped it down. Bloody great gaps staring at them in the very woods that had sheltered them all their lives, and people pulled from this life into a new world that swallowed them up.’
I loved the way the author made the forest another character in the story with almost human qualities: ‘Amos pushed in amongst the branches until they almost held him in an embrace.’ I thought the author struck the perfect balance between historical fact about wartime events and the story of Connie, Seppe and the other inhabitants of The Forest of Dean. Sometimes events erred slightly on the side of convenience but I think we must allow an author some artistic licence and, who knows, sometimes things are just meant to be. Finally, I always admire an author who is brave enough not to spell out the conclusion of a book but to let the reader imagine it for themselves.
I thought this was an outstanding debut. Shelter has an authentic period atmosphere with wonderful characters who take you on an intense but heart-warming journey.