Book description
Joan's voice is almost a whisper. 'Nobody talked about what they
did during the war. We all knew we weren't allowed to.'
Joan Stanley has a secret.
She is a loving mother, a doting grandmother, and leads a quiet,
unremarkable life in the suburbs. Then one morning there is a knock on
the door, and suddenly the past she has been so keen to hide for the
last fifty years threatens to overturn her comfortable world.
Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists, yet
unworldly Joan feels better suited to a science lecture and a cup of
cocoa. But a chance meeting with the glamorous Russian-born Sonya and
her charismatic cousin Leo blurs the edges of the things Joan thought
she knew about the world, and about herself.
In the post-War world of smoke and mirrors, allegiance is a slippery
thing. Working in a government ministry with access to top-secret
information, Joan is suddenly faced with the most difficult question
of all: what price would you pay to remain true to what you believe?
Would you betray your country, your family, even the man you love?
Jennie Rooney was born in Liverpool in 1980. She read History at the
University of Cambridge and taught English in France before moving to
London to work as a lawyer. Her first novel,
Inside the Whale
, was a Richard and Judy debut choice, Tesco Book Club selection and
shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. Her second novel,
The
Opposite of Falling
, was published in 2010.
