Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group, April 20th,2021

Format: ebook

Pages: 480

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

New York Times bestselling author Karen White weaves a story of friendship past and present, love, and betrayal that moves between war-torn London during the Blitz and the present day.

A captivating story of friendship, love and betrayal – and finding hope in the darkness of war.

London, 1939. Beautiful and ambitious Eva Harlow and her American best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can’t believe her luck – she’s getting everything she ever wanted. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. As Eva struggles to protect everything she holds dear, all it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever.

London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. Maddie, healing from past trauma and careful to close herself off to others, finds herself drawn to both Precious and to Colin, Precious’ enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious’ haunting past – and the secrets she swore she’d never reveal …

My Review:

Thank you Berkeley Publishing and NetGalley for the copy of this book.
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Read if you like: historical mysteries, dual timelines, WW2 fiction.
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The book goes back and forth between WW2 London and 2019 when Maddie comes to London to write an article on the fashion during the war. She interviews Precious, who’s distantly related to her family. Precious grew up in the states but came to London to be a model right before the war. Both Precious and Maddie are grappling with the ghosts of their pasts, and we have to figure out what they are.
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I really liked the mystery element. The character Eva was mysterious and I wanted to keep reading to figure out what was going to happen to her.
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One thing I struggled with is I thought Maddie and Eva were good characters, but there was so much mystery around them that we didn’t really get to know them and connect with them until the end. Given the length of the book, I wanted a bit more to connect me to these characters earlier.
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CW: blackmailing and manipulation, death of a loved one, Cancer.