22 Britannia Road
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4.3 • 13 Ratings
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson is a heartbreaking and powerful novel about wartime secrets and the difficulties of adjusting to postwar life
It is 1946 and Silvana and eight-year-old Aurek board a ship that will take them from Poland to England. Silvana has not seen her husband Janusz in six years, but, they are assured, he has made them a home in Ipswich.
However, after living wild in the forests for years, carrying a terrible secret, all Silvana knows is that she and Aurek are survivors. Everything else is lost. While Janusz, a Polish soldier who has criss-crossed Europe during the war, hopes his family will help put his own dark past behind him.
But the war and the years apart will always haunt each of them unless they together confront what they were compelled to do to survive.
'The characters are so convincing and the writing's so unshowily accomplished that it soon becomes something gripping. An admirable debut' Daily Mail
'A most accomplished first novel. Powerful story-telling and entirely convincing in its evocation of post-war England. Very good' Penelope Lively
'Keep your Kleenex handy reading 22 Britannia Road' Grazia
'An affecting story, extremely well told' The Times
Amanda Hodgkinson was born in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset and grew up in Essex and Suffolk.
She currently lives in south-west France with her husband and two daughters. 22 Britannia Road is her first novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her powerful debut, Hodgkinson takes on the tale of a family desperately trying to put itself back together after WWII. Silvana and Janusz have only been married a few months when the war forces them apart. Silvana and their infant son, Aurek, leave Poland and disappear into the forests of Eastern Europe, where they bear witness to German atrocities. Meanwhile Janusz, the sole survivor of his slaughtered military unit, flees to France. There, he takes up with a local girl and, though he loves her, awaits the war's end so that he can go in search of his wife and son. He eventually finds them in a refugee camp and they travel to England together, where they attempt to put the past behind them. But the secrets they carry pull at the threads of their fragile peace. Hodgkinson alternates viewpoints to relay the story of three desperate characters, skillfully toggling between the war and its aftermath with wonderfully descriptive prose that pulls the reader into a sweeping tale of survival and redemption.
Customer Reviews
22 Brittania Road
I was impressed by the way the narrative moved from past to present and still held together so well I enjoyed the book the characters were believable but strange
22 Britannia Road
This book is so believable, it isn't, but could easily be an autobiography. Very easy , enjoyable read. Didn't want it to end .