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The Winter Guest: The perfect chilling, gripping mystery as the nights draw in

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While identical in outward appearance, Helena and Ruth are actually as different as chalk and cheese. Helena is a bit of a tomboy and was her father’s companion of choice when it came to hunting expeditions and performing tasks around the home. Ruth has always been regarded as the prettier of the two and is the one imbued with the more traditionally feminine traits – so the pair has fallen into the roles of male and female parents, with Ruth responsible for running the home and the bulk of the child-rearing, while Helena chops wood, fixes things, and hunts for food. Ireland has quite a tumultuous history spanning generations. We all have stories to tell passed on from grandparents and great-grandparents of a very different country, of a time when unrest stretched from North to South. Irish men and women joined the British army during The Great War in a bid to help fight against tyranny and to help protect other nations in their fight for their independence. Many of these Irish soldiers, on their return, expected that Ireland would achieve Home Rule and, in time, become an independent country, finally free to make its own decisions. But as we know this was not to be. The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 brought about the Irish Civil War, one that left its scar on the generations that followed. Ireland had already been through great upheaval in 1916 during The Easter Rising, followed by The War of Independence which raged through the land from 1919 to 1921. There was a bitterness in many homes throughout the country and nobody escaped its wrath. Working undercover, Harkin must delve into the house's secrets—and discover where, in this fractured, embattled town, allegiances truly lie. But Harkin too is haunted by the ghosts of the past and by his terrible experiences on the battlefields. Can he find the truth about Maud's death before the past—and his strange, unnerving surroundings—overwhelm him? The setting is key. Isolated from the rest of the country, like many rural Poles, Helena and Ruth struggle for daily survival among food rationing, suspicious neighbors, and the looming threat of winter. Their mother lies dying in a Jewish hospital in Krakow — the only place that can care for her — and stalwart Helena makes the long trek to the city every week to visit her, while introspective Ruth stays behind to tend the children, nursing a recent heartbreak. Then Helena stumbles upon an injured American paratrooper in the woods and decides to hide him; this act of mercy sets the stage for a passionate affair and betrayal that changes the sisters’ lives forever. In 1921 the RIC and the Auxiliary forces were unforgiving of the guerrilla tactics employed by the IRA. Spies infiltrated all sides and Tom Harkin is soon entrenched in a cat and mouse game of survival. Trust was a very important tool but who to give it to was a dangerous act easily resulting in torture and death if the wrong ear overheard a conversation. Tom Harkin is unsettled as he takes in the decay of Kilcolgan House, a house very much in decline from when he had been there in previous happier times. There is an air of unease, a threatening atmosphere that is heightened by his visions of the dead. Are these apparitions just the imagination of an overwrought person or is there something of the supernatural afoot?

Tom Harkin is determined in his quest for the truth behind Maud’s death. He crosses paths with some very unpleasant characters and his search takes him on an unexpected and dangerous journey. The descriptions of the crumbling walls and shadows of Kilcolgan House are sharply depicted giving the reader a true sense of life for the Anglo-Irish during these senseless and sorrowful times. Il dubbio la combatte nel cuore, ma gli eventi della guerra travolgeranno comunque le loro giovani vite ponendoli di fronte alla scelta di agire o sottrarsi all’occhio del nemico aspettando l’inevitabile fine del loro fragile equilibrio. Their lives are harsh. Due to the shortages of food they are constantly starving, they struggle to clothe themselves and their growing siblings. Ruth is the homemaker, caring for everyone whilst Helena has taken on a more “hunter gatherer” role, providing for everyone. The sisters have quite a complex relationship. They love each other, yes, but they are not quite friends, and there is an undercurrent of resentment throughout the book from Ruth.

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Un paracadutista, l’americano di religione ebrea Sam, atterra con il suo aereo tra i monti sopra la piccola casa.

A stirring novel of first love in a time of war and the unbearable choices that could tear sisters apart, from the celebrated author of The Kommandant's Girl.

Customer reviews

There was something dangerous about him. There was something enigmatic about him that made her want to follow him into his strange unknown world.’ The film is based on Sharman MacDonald's play, [2] premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (in the Quarry studio theatre, 23 January to 18 February 1995) before transferring to the Almeida Theatre in London (14 March to 15 April 1995). La mamma è molto malata e ricoverata a Cracovia, mentre il padre è morto travolto da un carro; ora sono le ragazze a dover portare avanti la famiglia e a fare da padre e da madre ai piccoli. January 1921. Though the Great War is over, in Ireland a new, civil war is raging. The once-grand Kilcolgan House, a crumbling bastion shrouded in sea-mist, lies half empty and filled with ghosts – both real and imagined – the Prendevilles, the noble family within, co-existing only as the balance of their secrets is kept. Vita dura, cibo scarso e tanta fame danno poco spazio alle due giovani donne che lottano con le unghie e con i denti per tenere uniti i loro cari.

Jenoff ( The Ambassador’s Daughter, 2013, etc.) weaves a tale of fevered teenage love in a time of horrors in the early 1940s, as the Nazis invade Poland and herd Jews into ghettos and concentration camps. A prologue set in 2013, narrated by a resident of the Westchester Senior Center, provides an intriguing setup. A woman and a policeman visit the resident and ask if she came from a small Polish village. Their purpose is unclear until they mention bones recently found there: “And we think you might know something about them.” The book proceeds in the third person, told from the points of view mostly of teenage Helena, who comes upon an injured young Jewish-American soldier, and sometimes of her twin, Ruth, who is not as adventurous as Helena but is very competitive with her. Their father is dead, their mother is dying in a hospital, and they are raising their three younger siblings amid danger and hardship. The romance between Helena and Sam, the soldier, is often conveyed in overheated language that doesn’t sit well with the era’s tragic events: “There had been an intensity to his embrace that said he was barely able to contain himself, that he also wanted more.” Jenoff, clearly on the side of tolerance, slips in a simplified historical framework for the uninformed. But she also feeds stereotypes, having Helena note that Sam has “a slight arch to his nose” and a dark complexion that “would make him suspect as a Jew immediately.” Clichés also pop up during the increasingly complex plot: “But even if they stood in place, the world around them would not.” I just can't with this book. I wanted to love it, I really did. Historical fiction is my thing and I'll try anything centered around World War II. I also received a copy of this through the Goodreads FirstReads program so I really wanted to be able to like it and leave a review saying so. Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena’s concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades.Don’t miss Pam Jenoff’s new novel, Code Name Sapphire , a riveting tale of bravery and resistance during World War II. Ruth and Helena are 18 years old, twin sisters, who have taken on the role of caring for their homestead and younger siblings in rural occupied Poland. The girls are close – as twins often are – but there are lots of resentments bubbling under the surface, too. Helena resents Ruth for being their mother’s favourite, while Ruth envies the fact that Helena gets to escape their small dwelling every so often. It’s not that Ruth particularly wants to be out trudging through the forest on the weekly visit to the hospital, or out in the cold chopping firewood, it’s more that she is jealous of that little bit of freedom and time to herself that Helena has at those times. One would think that with a storyline like this it would be a really emotional and interesting read. Unfortunately it was flat and emotionless. The conversation were dull and the actions were slow. Some of the events that happens deserved a better reaction from me but I just didn't feel. I couldn't feel the romance or any sympathy towards the characters, except maybe for Helena at times. Helena and Ruth are twin sister from a small village in Poland during the WWII. With their mother hospitalized they had to start taking care of their three younger siblings. The war is getting closer and supplies are scarce. Things are very dangerous and people are disappearing everyday. As the sisters struggle in their daily life, the rivalry and jealousy between them affects some of their actions and might prove dangerous after Helena saves an American solider and tries to help him.

An 18-year-old Polish girl falls in love, swoons over a first kiss, dreams of marriage—and, oh yes, we are in the middle of the Holocaust. I rarely waste too much time on books I don't like, but I was curious enough about what was going to happen to Sam and Helena in this book, that even though I disliked it already at 17%, I kept chugging along, only to come to regret that decision. This is an amazing story of Helena and Ruth, 18 year old identical twins raising their three younger siblings in a small town in Poland during WW2. They are identical in looks but they are very different from each other in their behaviors. Ruth is more domestic and lady like, Helena is definitely more adventurous and used to the outdoors. As they grow older, they begin to have secrets from each other. Their lives and relationship are about to be altered forever when Helena stumbles upon a downed American airman, Sam, in the forest, who she takes to shelter and secrety tries to help with food and clothing. Gradually they build up a relationship and the story becomes one of a first, deep love which must be kept hidden for their own safety. My main gripe about the book is that Sam is an American airman, serving for the US armed forces. But, the book is set in December 1940, a full year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor which brought the Americans into the war. It could not have happened! He would not have been there! Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn’t be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day.Working undercover, Harkin must delve into the house’s secrets – and discover where, in this fractured, embattled town, each family member’s allegiances truly lie. But Harkin too is haunted by the ghosts of the past and by his terrible experiences on the battlefields. Can he find out the truth about Maud’s death before the past – and his strange, unnerving surroundings – overwhelm him? Un romanzo che lascia nel lettore l’amarezza delle giovani vite andate incontro a un destino spietato e la gratitudine per quegli eroi che si immolarono per la salvezza di tanti. The book is written in a way that doesn't make it exciting or interesting, thing are just happening, slowly. Non manca l’azione rocambolesca che, se non fosse ispirata a tanti casi veri, non sfigurerebbe in un film.

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