Mandy Robotham

In a Nutshell: This offers a perspective of WWII I’ve never seen so far – the story of the Norwegian resistance. But it becomes quite hazy in its focus and hence my final feelings are quite muted.

Story:

Norway, 1942. Twenty-five year old Rumi Orlstad is mourning the death of her fiancé Magnus, who drowned while operating the ‘Shetland Bus’ (the secret special-ops waterway link between Shetland in Scotland and German-occupied Norway.) In a bid to bolster Norway’s resistance fight against the German occupiers, Rumi and her dad become part of the underground movement who smuggle agents and fugitives across the North Sea to Scotland. One such agent is half-Norwegian Jens, who has a great role to play as the local coordinator between various resistance groups.
When Rumi’s friend Anya finds herself in a special German-run maternity camp, Rumi knows that she has to help Anya out.
The book comes in a limited third person perspective of Rumi, Jens, and one character from the maternity camp where Anya is located.

Where the book worked for me:
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Have you ever wondered why The Berlin Wall was called by the name of the city and not something like the German Wall or The Great Wall of Germany? Simple. It didn’t surround a country but slashed right through a city. And when a city is divided, it is more than just geography that is affected.

This book is a historical fiction centred around the Berlin Wall and the lives upended because of its abrupt construction in 1961. An intriguing premise for sure. I’ve read a lot of this genre but I’ve never read a book covering this particular historical timeline. The book delivers on some points and disappoints on some more. Here’s what you need to know.

Story:
Jutta and Karin Voight, twenty four year old twins and citizens of West Berlin, are extremely close to each other. Jutta is the practical one, working in a library. Karin is the creative one, interested in fashion design. When the Berlin Wall comes up almost overnight without any warning to the residents, Karin ends up stuck on the East side of the wall. What follows is Jutta’s struggle to get her twin back, and Karin’s struggle to stay safe, and even stay alive, on the unknown side of her city. The story covers the time period from 1961 to 1963, with a brief epilogue set in 1989, the year the Wall came down.

What I enjoyed:
✔ Everything to do with the Berlin wall and its impact. As something that is much in the past, I had no idea of the political machinations behind the wall. The book reveals the facts painstakingly and you actually feel the pain and confusion of the citizens on both sides of the divide.
✔ The main characters seemed quite believable. Both Jutta and Karin come across as human rather than these perfect girls who can do no wrong. It makes them seem approachable, vulnerable and hence likeable. I did like getting the story from both their perspectives.
✔ The romantic arcs with Danny and Otto are well-written.
✔ While this is my first book by Mandy Robotham, I was impressed by her attention to historical detail.

What could have been better:
❌ I found the chapter names distracting. I would have preferred plain chapter numbers for such a story. The chapter names made me feel like I was reading a children’s book with the title revealing what’s going to happen in that particular section. This is even more irritating when the chapters are so short.
❌ The writing style could have been better. The story moves ahead very slowly. There is a lot of repetition in the content and this turned an interesting story into a mundane one. Karin’s thoughts especially seem to go around in circles and it gets boring after a point.
❌ Many of the secondary characters (barring Otto and Danny) aren’t developed well. (The action remains adamantly concentrated on the twin sisters.) So the rest of the characters fall flat.
❌ Some part of the content is farfetched. I find it very difficult to justify impractical writing in historical fiction.

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The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux has something that I really love in a book. I always enjoy stories that look back over a long life and which follow history, whether that be important events or social history.

Ruby is now in her 90th year. She's an acclaimed author and her publishers hope she has one book left in her: her memoir. Agreeing to go forward with the project, Ruby sets about telling her life to her new assistant but this memoir has a difference: it's told by means of her memories of twelve men in her life and the adventures she had both home and away. Via New York, Berlin, Budapest, Venice and Vietnam, and of course England, the reader accompanies Ruby on a journey through her past. What a life she had!

My favourite sections were those set in England. In many ways these were the least adventurous but for me they were the most interesting and the men in those sections seemed the most fleshed out. However, as a whole this book is quite fascinating, a romp through the second half of the 20th century with several of those scandals referred to in the title making an appearance.

Ruby really has some quite incredible experiences. She's a wonderful character, feisty, no-nonsense, strong, wily and fun, and when life knocks her down she gets back up again. She has her good times and her bad, just like in any life. Her tale felt fresh and real, and yet also surreal at times. I enjoyed reading it and think M J Robotham has done a really great job at crafting this fictional memoir. I don't think I'll forget Ruby in a hurry.… (more)