Overview:

A lifetime of secrets. A history untold. 

No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir. 

In 1959 New York City, two strangers enter the Miltons’ circle. One captures the attention of Kitty’s daughter while the other makes each of them question what the family stands for. This new generation insists the times are changing. And in one night, everything does.

So much so that in the present day, the third generation of Miltons doesn’t have enough money to keep the island in Maine. Evie Milton’s mother has just died, and as Evie digs into her mother’s and grandparents’ history, what she finds is a story as unsettling as it is inescapable, the story that threatens the foundation of the Milton family myth.

Moving through three generations and back and forth in time, The Guest Book asks how we remember and what we choose to forget. It shows the untold secrets we inherit and pass on, unknowingly echoing our parents and grandparents. Sarah Blake’s triumphant novel tells the story of a family and a country that buries its past in quiet, until the present calls forth a reckoning.

While I listened to this one while driving around this summer, I almost wished that I had gotten it as a book as I really needed to pay attention to it and that’s hard to do in traffic! This was the story of a family that moved across time, but not chronologically, and I had moments of confusion. At the end of the book I had questions: How/why did one character drown? Who was one character’s father? What did I miss? None of my friends were able to answer me. The audio felt super long to me (but not boring) and a quick check just showed me that it’s almost 500 pages. One note that seriously irritated me was that the narrator referred to this wealthy family attending “Groton” but pronounced it, on at least two occasions, as “Grow-ton”. Groton is a very famous prep school that is alive and well today, so a quick check would tell the people directing this audio that it is pronounced “Graw-tin” with no long /o/. Somebody make a note of it!

I’d love to discuss this book with someone who also read it. I felt that Ms. Blake made some statements through her novel regarding race, class, and gender that the reader should not overlook. It would make a great book club pick!

Overall, I really liked it and would look to read more by this author.

(purchased with an audible credit)

Description (via Net Galley)

You can pay a terrible price for keeping a promise …

Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly, and her buttons done up correctly. Because Evelyn is a woman with secrets and Evelyn remembers everything. She can never forget the promise she made to the love of her life, to discover the truth about the mission that led to his death, no matter what it cost her…

When Evelyn’s niece Pat opens an old biscuit tin to find a photo of a small girl with a red ball entitled ‘Liese, 1951’ and a passport in another name, she has some questions for her aunt. And Evelyn is transported back to a place in Germany known as ‘The Forbidden Village,’ where a woman who called herself Eva went where no one else dared, amongst shivering prisoners, to find the man who gambled with her husband’s life …

A gripping, haunting and compelling read about love, courage and betrayal set in the war-battered landscape of Germany. Fans of The Letter, The Alice Network and The Nightingale will be hooked.

As you readers know, I love the WWII genre and never tire of reading about courageous and resilient women who survived the war. The novel was told both in present day and then the past, as we see the events shaping Eva’s life, her husband’s, and the man she came to despise. What I loved about this novel, though, was how Eva worked hard to come across as a bit “batty” in the present day so that no one could discover her secrets.

A great read that is not the typical “formula” fare. Highly recommended!

Thank you for my review e-galley!