BookViral Readers Award Finalist for WW2 fiction! For fans of Pam Jenoff, Anthony Doerr, Sebastian Faulks and Kate Atkinson. Some memories fade, some refuse to let you go… married, their plans were interrupted when Peter enlisted, only to be captured by the German army and interred in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Left at home and with only sporadic news from Peter, Rhoda has spent years apart from her fiancé, with no guarantees that he will return home.
When a film crew arrives to capture the iconic scenes for David Lean’s Brief Encounter, Rhoda finds herself caught up in a love affair of her own…
Ten years later, Rhoda and Peter are married, but their relationship is hanging by a thread.
What secrets have they hidden from each other over the years? How did Peter manage to survive the brutal war years? And did Rhoda ever get over the man who captured her heart…?
As they both reflect on their past encounters they have to decide if they can ever rebuild a relationship which was shattered by the war…
PAST ENCOUNTERS is a thrilling war & military saga encompassing the atmospheric filming of Brief Encounter and the extraordinary Great March of prisoners of war through snow-bound Germany. It is a historical survivor story of friendship, hope, and how in the end, it is the small things that enable love to survive.
‘a beautifully written and thought-provoking story, an imaginative and emotive way to celebrate a fascinating slice of history’ Lancashire Evening Post
‘a genuine joy to read with an intoxicating, old-fashioned feel about it…Highly compelling historical fiction and a genuine page-turner, Past Encounters is recommended without reservation.’ Book Viral
‘a compelling story about love and heartache and forgiveness and war’ Library Educated Blog
‘for lovers of history and drama this is a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon’ Bookgeeks
‘It really makes you think about the relationships you have in real life and the choices you make. This story really hit home for me and gave me a lot to think about… Highly recommend’ Layered Pages Blog
‘I don’t think I have read any war-time stories quite like this one… full of tension with well-drawn characters and a great sense of time and place’ Books Please
‘an enticing story of the endurance of the human spirit, the hunger for love and appreciation, and how secrets can fester and tear people away from each other… I highly recommend this to any lover of WWII history’ Historical Tapestry Blog
‘a brilliant exploration of the psychological effects of war and their lasting impact’ Flashlight Commentary Blog
‘Her writing style invited the reader into another world that I was totally immersed in . . . delicate and graceful’ Just One More Chapter Blog
‘a tightly-focused and strong narrative that supports and explores varying themes from duty to love, and more, against the backdrop of WWII in England.’ Ageless Pages Blog
*** PLEASE NOTE THIS WAS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED UNDER THE PENNAME OF DAVINA BLAKE ***
BookViral Readers Award Finalist – Best in Genre for WW2
B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoreemore
A brilliantly written and researched story about the atrocities of war, secrets, and the anxieties of those left behind.
Rhoda and Peter are drifting apart. Engaged before Peter enlisted in army, they were separated for six years while World War II raged in Europe. For Peter, the war was a body-crushing and soul-crushing event. Captured almost immediately by the Germans, he spent years in a prisoner work camp, reduced to skin and bone, witnessing and carrying out unthinkable acts in the struggle for survival. While in the camp, he made friends with Archie, a terrified boy just turned seventeen. Together, the two of them form a friendship that can only be born from the horrors they both experience. After the war the friendship continues as Peter meets regularly with Archie and Archie’s wife Helen to relive that part of their lives which civilians (and especially Rhoda) will never understand.
For Rhoda, the war was a grayness that took over her whole world. Her downtrodden mother, rebellious brother, and tyrannical father leave her little to look forward to at home. The impossibility of marrying and having children of her own gives her no chance to escape her circumstances. With letters delayed or missing, she begins to wonder if she ever really loved Peter? At the same time, she also feels the crushing burden of guilt for this betrayal–what kind of woman abandons a fiance who is suffering in POW camp? When a film company comes to their little town in the north of England, Rhoda works as a waitress for the cast and crew, meeting a charismatic location scout named Matthew. She’s been wearing Peter’s engagement ring for five years now…but is the slim possibility of him being still alive reason enough to halt her budding romance with Matthew?
Alternating between two timelines–the war years and ten years in the future–this book explores what it is that brings two people together, what it means to drift apart, and whether a chasm cut between two souls can ever be bridged.
I am an avid reader of Deborah Swift’s books. Her novel Divided Inheritance, set in seventeenth century England and Spain, pulled me in with its descriptions, its characters, and its superbly balanced plot. This book, Past Encounters, was a much slower start for me. Part of it might have been that I am a little ho-hum about World War II fiction. Another part might have been that the beginning of the novel was somewhat unclear and meandering, although it did certainly leave enough clues to intrigue me. I wasn’t really sure, initially, where the story was taking me, but by the middle of the book, I was hooked, and by the last quarter I was glued to the page. The tragic grandeur of two ordinary people approaching middle age, shackled by the past and haunted in the present, had the surprising ability to keep me fully on tenterhooks.
After finishing the book, I was interested to learn that the film being made in the novel was an actual movie released in 1945 called Brief Encounter. Some of the plot points in the book echo the plot of the 1945 film, woven in with Deborah Swift’s typical artistic skill.
If you have the patience to let this character study percolate for a bit, you will enjoy one of the finest evocations I have encountered of what World War II meant for those who fought in it and those who stayed at home. Recommended.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
This is a brave, interesting and skilfully written book. Brave because the author doesn’t shy away from allowing her characters to be less than perfect, to behave badly and sometimes irrationally. Interesting because of its period detail which covers fascinating insights into everyday wartime life, as well as the filming of Brief Encounter and the horrors of the Long March. Skilful because of the way Deborah Swift manages three points of view, two in the first person and one in third, as well as three timelines – 1940, 1945 and 1955 – and does this without confusing the reader.
There are aspects of the book that exasperated me – the behaviour of Peter was not always rational – nor that of the two women. Two sets of parents in the book were very unlikeable and unsympathetic – Rhoda’s and Peter’s – and initially I thought Matthew’s were heading the same way – but they redeemed themselves. I also wondered about the ten years it took for Peter and Rhoda to confront the truth and their feelings (avoiding spoilers here).
These are small quibbles though. All in all though, I found this hard to put down and a vivid evocation of many aspects of World War 2.