Book description
Summer 1940. The evacuation of Dunkirk proves that the British can
rise to a challenge, even against seemingly insurmountable odds. But
now the soldiers walk the streets of Dover, even wandering through
Woolworths store, and take weary turns on the town's skating rink.
Life, despite the threat of invasion and the reality of bombing,
must go on and people must take comfort where they find it. Toby
Hendry, a fighter pilot, is awaiting orders when he meets Giselle, a
young Frenchwoman who took the chance to flee occupied France with the
English troops. Their love affair feels like a summer idyll, but can
it withstand the forces of war?
Meanwhile, reserve naval commander Paul Instow has been called up to
fight in a war for which he feels too old. Distracting him from his
worries is Molly, a young Dover prostitute. Their relationship is
tender and happy, but is this a love born from desperation or could it
be something more permanent?
And then there are Harold, Spots and Boot, three boys desperate to
fight the German invaders, armed only with catapults and a stolen Bren gun...
In Dover Beach Thomas chronicles the lives and loves of
ordinary people in besiged Britain during these tense, but curiously
elated days.
Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a
sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is
evoked in
This Time Next Week
published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter, before going on to
do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his bestselling
novel
The Virgin Soldiers
, which has achieved international sales of over two million copies.
Dover Beach
is his twenty-ninth novel. In 2005, Leslie Thomas was awarded an OBE for
services to literature. Leslie Thomas was awarded an OBE for services to
literature in 2005.
