The Soldier's Wife (Margaret Leroy)

Yes, another novel set in World War II. I'm pretty sure this is my last one for a while, since even I'm starting to get uncomfortable with how much I read about this time period. That said, this novel truly delivered. It's the story of Vivienne, an Englishwoman that lives in Guernsey, one of the islands within the United Kingdom that suffered Nazi occupation. She married a man from Guernsey and moved there with him, and at the beginning of the story he's already off to fight in France.

Her decision to stay on the island, even though everyone that could and wanted to get out did, settles a new course for her life that she couldn't have imagined. She makes clear from the beginning that her marriage hasn't worked for quite a while.This, of course, makes what happens later on less morally questionable.

After the Nazi invasion of the island, some officers move into the house next door to Vivienne's. She eventually begins an affairs with one of the soldiers. I didn't find that Gunther's and Vivienne's self-justifications about what their affair were surprising. Both keep themselves almost purposefully in the dark about what the war means, as well. Vivienne's daughters work as a sort of moral compass, though the neither girl really understands what's going on around them.

Several other story lines take place, none of them particularly original. Still, Leroy manages to bring an intimacy to this war story that makes this book very much worth reading.

Next up: The Queen of the South, by Arturo Perez-Reverte