Welcome to the second day of my special feature, when I’ll be looking at four more books that are part of Book Club Gold. From April 7-10, twelve quality authors writing in a range of genres have come together to offer a book a month to keep your book club talking for a whole year. When you download each free e-book and register your email address, you’ll receive discussion questions for that book. You don’t have to be in a book club to enjoy these books – but if you are, do tell your friends! There’s a Facebook page, where you can discuss the books with the authors – and if you’d like to see the slide show, you’ll find it here.
My first book today is Past Encounters by Davina Blake.
Discussion question: The novel mentions Ruth Ellis, who was hanged for murder in 1955. Discuss whether murder in wartime requires different moral considerations from a murder committed in peacetime.
From the author
I wanted to write something about WWII, as I realized this period was about to disappear from living memory. I interviewed people who lived through the war and this experience was both moving and enlightening, particularly the stories of prisoners of war. The novel is set during the filming of Brief Encounter (voted Britain’s most-loved film) and the bombing of Dresden, both of which take place in February 1945. The restrained atmosphere of the film conveyed the attitudes of the time and I tried to reflect this feeling of repressed passion in the book.
Past Encounters tells the story of Rhoda, who finds one of her husband’s letters one day and thinks it is from another woman, and that he is having an affair. But when Rhoda goes to confront the ‘other woman’, she discovers she’s not his lover after all, but the wife of his best friend of ten years, Archie Foster – a man she has never even heard of.
How could her husband have kept such a friendship secret for so long? And why? The story goes back to WWII where her husband Peter, met Archie. But Peter is not the only one with secrets from the war years, for Rhoda had her own passionate affair, and this too must be brought to light.
Like the look of that one? To get your free copy of Past Encounters – or any of the books that are part of Book Club Gold – just click on any of the images in the post. I’ll be featuring another book at 10am.
