The Forever Summer (Lulu Taylor)

The publisher’s description

Kent, 2002
Lottie Conway has spent her life in the shadow of a scandal that has ripped her family apart. Now expecting her own child, she must untangle the legacy of her family’s tarnished name and uncover what really happened in those pre-war summers. Returning to beautiful Wyke House, Lottie confronts the only person left who knows the truth: her grandmother, Dinah.

Germany, 1932
Dinah Conway and her beloved William are on a blissful honeymoon when they bump into celebrated MP Winston Churchill. Unexpectedly embroiled in the febrile politics of 1930s Munich they find themselves deep in a perilous world of secrets and spying. Then, in the heat of a German summer, a devastating betrayal occurs – one that ends in a secret buried for seventy years .

My reading experience

This book is a dual timeline which explores a deep secret and its impact on a family over 70 years.

The characters of today’s timeline are mainly Dinah, now in her old age and in her last days, and her granddaughter Lottie, expecting her first child and determined to uncover the truth about something that has brought pain to the family all those years. She knows about the book that was written about her grandfather and the subsequent film. But she can sense that there is something else behind all this. She remembers being there when her grandmother was interviewed for the book and she now wants to go back into all this and try to get to the bottom of it. These conversations are beautifully written between grandmother and granddaughter. Lulu Taylor writes in such a precise and poetic style that we can sense not only what is said, but the emotions that are passing between the characters, through their bodies, their eyes and all the pauses.

The main characters of the second timeline are Dinah as a child and a young woman, William her husband and Victoria. William and Dinah see their lives change completely when they visit Germany during their honeymoon. It was the time when Hitler was rising in Germany. They meet Churchill and Ernst Hanfstaengel, the famous Putzi, at that time very close friend of Hitler. This is the time when Putzi tried to organise that Churchill meets Hitler without success. Later, once they are back in the UK, William’s friend Victoria comes back from India. Dinah goes again then to Germany, with Victoria. What happens there is the heart of the secret that Lottie is discovering, little by little, in the conversations with her grandmother. This second timeline is based on the real life of Putzi, with some fictional modifications to suit the story. Lulu Taylor really brings to life the atmosphere in Germany at the time, the perception people may have had when they saw and heard Hitler, the signs that showed war was coming and the blindness of most people to these signs.

I could not stop turning the pages of this story and it made me look up the life of Putzi, which was very interesting. It was a great read again by Lulu Taylor with good background research and her superb writing. and it offers some food for thought in today’s world.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for giving me the opportunity to read this book. All opinions are my own.

For more about Lulu Taylor, you can consult her website.