Author Description

Product Description At the beginning of World War II, twelve-year-old Nora Lynch is one of thousands of London children sent away to the safety of the English countryside. Her surrogate family, Reverend and Mrs. Rivers and their daughter, Grace, are like no one she has ever met, offering shelter, affection, and the sister she never had. But Nora is too young and too naïve to understand the cracks beneath the surface of her idyllic new life at the rectory or the disappointments of the Riverses' marriage. And as her friendship with Grace grows more intense, she aches to become even closer. What happens next is a secret that she keeps for more than fifty years, a secret that she can begin to reveal only when, elderly and alone, Nora knows that she is close to the end. A beautiful meditation on love, friendship, and family, Days of Grace is a stunning debut that brings a tumultuous era to life. Nora tells her story in alternating chapters from the past and present, projecting her childhood nostalgia with a cinematic glow. Review "Sarah Waters meets Daphne du Maurier." ---Harper's Bazaar UK About the Author Catherine Hall worked in documentary film production and then for an international peace-building organization before becoming a freelance writer and editor for human rights and development charities.British actress and narrator Josephine Bailey has won ten AudioFile Earphones Awards and a prestigious Audie Award, and Publishers Weekly named her Best Female Narrator in 2002. From AudioFile Josephine Bailey's accomplished performance offers the only uplifting element of this bleak novel. Author Hall lets a promising opening deteriorate into gloom as adolescent Nora is evacuated from bombing danger in WWII London to the safety of life with a vicar's family in pastoral Kent. There she learns that dark secrets and forbidden desires can be just a threatening and destructive as bombs. The depressing story unfolds in chapters alternating be