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Title: Days of Grace

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Catherine Hall

Narrator: Josephine Bailey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-27-10

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

At the beginning of World War II, 12-year-old Nora Lynch is one of thousands of London children sent away to the safety of the English countryside. Her surrogate family, Reverend and Mrs. Rivers and their daughter, Grace, are like no one she has ever met, offering shelter, affection, and the sister she never had. But Nora is too young and too naive to understand the cracks beneath the surface of her idyllic new life at the rectory or the disappointments of the Riverses' marriage. And as her friendship with Grace grows more intense, she aches to become even closer.

What happens next is a secret that she keeps for more than 50 years, a secret that she can begin to reveal only when, elderly and alone, Nora knows that she is close to the end.

A beautiful meditation on love, friendship, and family, Days of Grace is a stunning debut that brings a tumultuous era to life. Nora tells her story in alternating chapters from the past and present, projecting her childhood nostalgia with a cinematic glow.

Members Reviews:

Book group

I read this for our Daytona Beach book group. It was fine (do you feel the but coming?) but I found it a bit odd. The characters were not well fleshed out and left you feeling them as not complete.

A Kindleobsessed Review

I'm fairly certain this is the first time I have been completely clueless as to how to start my review. My normal banter seems wildly inappropriate, yet focusing entirely on the gloom, I feel will have an adverse effect.

When I first read the slip cover for "Days of Grace" I picked up two very distinctive things,

1. Struggling with the affects of war through the eyes of a 12 year old girl

2. Experiencing the inner turmoil of a lost love

but when it was all said and done, when I closed the back cover, and switched off the light, it occurred to me that what I got was so much more.

Troubled with the idea of loosing her daughter unnecessarily to war, Nora's mother does the unthinkable... offers her up as an evacuee, and plops her on a train bound for the country, however, what her mother sees as a selfless act of sacrifice, Nora saw as abandonment. Unsure of herself (or her surroundings) Nora's mind starts to run wild, that is until she meets Grace. As a girl who is used to running free (and getting her way) Grace teaches Nora a whole world of things she never knew existed... books, beauty, and love... but when Nora's love continues to go unrequited, and her life suddenly starts to take a direct left, the place that she lovingly started to refer to as home, is not so welcoming anymore. In an effort to escape an unhealthy situation, and take control of her own future, Nora decides to runaway. With Grace, dutifully by her side, the two girls set out to experience the other side of life... the war torn, desolate streets of London. Will their love for each other be enough to battle the forces around them, will the shady side of their new home tear them apart, and will Nora ever accomplish the most challenging feat of all... forgiving herself for the things she has done for love?

"Catherine Hall" did exactly the opposite of what I expected in this novel... she focused on the negative. This story was not about WWII, or even an enduring friendship for that matter, what is was... was a story about a young girl so desperate for a family, that her own conscience created a mutilated web of abandonment issues, and internal punishment.