The Postmistress

I was very proud of myself.  During Spring Break, I wandered into Book Warehouse and saw three books I wanted to buy but instead I jotted down the titles and went to the public library up the street and put a hold on them.  The first that I received was The Postmistress by Sarah Blake.   The book is set during the beginning of the Second World War when the Americans are not yet in the war.  The book focuses on three women, a reporter working with Edward R. Morrow in London, the postmistress in a mythical small town on the western edge of Cape Cod, and the doctor's bride in the same small town. 

It's been interesting reading a book about the First World War to my class, it's really taken me into that time, and this book does this to me as well.  At a certain point in my life it seemed as if I read many books about the Second World War, probably because this was the most important event of my parents' generation so that many books were written by those who had been involved, but not so many now, and this book is written by a young writer who wasn't alive during the time the book is written.

It's a definite page turner as we finally find out what the letter is that the postmistress hasn't delivered.  The characters who include the doctor, a German Jewish refugee and the one man in the town convinced that u-boats will try to approach, are all fascinating, and sympathetic.  I think the author very successfully takes us to this time whether we are in the small Cape Cod town, to London during the Blitz, or sweeping across Europe on a train, as refugees usually unsuccessfully try to escape.