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End-of-the-Year Contest 2016

Congratulations to the winners of our 2016 End-of-the-Year Contest! One Grand Prize winner received all 40 of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2016, while eight others won a selection of five of these titles. You can see all the winners below, along with 2016's Bets On selections.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

London, 1939.

The day war is declared, Mary North leaves finishing school unfinished, goes straight to the War Office and signs up.

Tom Shaw decides to ignore the war --- until he learns his roommate, Alistair Heath, has unexpectedly enlisted. Then the conflict can no longer be avoided.

Week of March 6, 2017

Paperback releases for the week of March 6th include EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN by Chris Cleave, in which three unforgettable individuals are thrown together by war, love and their search for belonging in the ever-changing landscape of World War II London; WHAT IS NOT YOURS IS NOT YOURS, Helen Oyeyemi's collection of intertwined stories that is built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical; ALL SUMMER LONG, Dorothea Benton Frank's latest novel that follows the travels of one couple though a tumultuous summer; and SPAIN IN OUR HEARTS by Adam Hochschild, a sweeping history of the Spanish Civil War, told through a dozen characters, including Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

May 2016

EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN by Chris Cleave is based on the story of his grandfather’s service on Malta, as well as his grandmother’s life in the UK during the same time period.

Three characters --- Mary North, Tom Shaw and Alistair Heath --- bring the story to life here. Mary has volunteered to teach a small group of kids who have been left behind in the evacuation of the children, something I had not been aware of. The infirmed, those mentally handicapped and the non-whites typically were rejected by the families in the countryside who boarded the evacuees, or they were not sent at all. Tom is the school administrator who does not wish to join the war effort, preferring to stay behind and help those who were not wanted. Mary and Tom quickly become enamored with each other.