Super excited to be with you today as part of the Blog Tour for the fabulous THE SEAMSTRESS OF WARSAW by the wonderful REBECCA MASCULL.
My thanks to the author, publisher and Zoe of Zooloo’s Book Tours for putting the tour together and letting me be part of it all!
ABOUT THE BOOK
1940
London
A man learns a shocking truth about his past.
Warsaw
A mother writes a diary as the ghetto walls go up.
From the bombed streets of London, to occupied Warsaw, to the Polish forests bristling with partisans, will their paths cross?
Will their pasts be reconciled?
And will they survive the deadly assaults on their freedom and their lives?
THE SEAMSTRESS OF WARSAW is a tale of endurance and loss, family and blood, stories and histories, that questions the nature of who we are and where we are going, when the road ahead is burning.
PUBLISHED BY SPELLBOUND BOOKS
PURCHASE LINKS
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B099KWCPFS
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B099KWCPFS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Mascull is an author of historical novels. She also writes saga fiction under the pen-name of Mollie Walton. Rebecca’s latest book under the Mascull name is coming on September 18th 2021, THE SEAMSTRESS OF WARSAW, the powerful tale of two people unknowingly connected to each other, caught up in the whirlwind of World War II, whose perilous journeys we follow from the Blitz to the Warsaw Ghetto and beyond, published by SpellBound. Mollie Walton’s The Ironbridge Saga series is set in the dangerous world of the iron industry: THE DAUGHTERS OF IRONBRIDGE (2019). The second book in the trilogy is THE SECRETS OF IRONBRIDGE (2020), set in the brickyards of the 1850s. The third book is set in the coalmines and servants’ quarters of the 1870s: THE ORPHAN OF IRONBRIDGE (2021). All three are published by Bonnier Zaffre. Mollie’s next trilogy will be set in WW2 North Yorkshire and the first book of this saga will be out in March 2022, published by Welbeck. Her first novel as Rebecca Mascull, THE VISITORS (2014) tells the story of Adeliza Golding, a deaf-blind child living on her father’s hop farm in Victorian Kent. Her second novel SONG OF THE SEA MAID (2015) is set in the C18th and concerns an orphan girl who becomes a scientist and makes a remarkable discovery. Her third novel, THE WILD AIR (2017) is about a shy Edwardian girl who learns to fly and becomes a celebrated aviatrix but the shadow of war is looming. All are published by Hodder & Stoughton.
She also completed the finishing chapters of her friend and fellow novelist Vanessa Lafaye’s final work, a novella called MISS MARLEY, a prequel to Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL. This novella is published by HarperCollins.
Rebecca has worked in education, has a Masters in Writing and lives by the sea in the east of England. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, based at the University of Lincoln.
Follow her at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RebeccaMascull/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beccamascull/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rebeccamascull
MY REVIEW
This is a wonderfully written story, that triggers all your emotions as it focuses on characters who are dealing with the toughest dilemmas and conditions during the War and brings to the fore the strength of the human spirit. Even when life is so desperate and hopeless, there is something within us that keeps us fighting and pushing for answers.
On one side of the story we hear from Daniel, a young man in 1940 London who is desperate to go to Poland to find out the truth about his past and discover who he really is. And on the other, we hear from a woman who is Jewish, living in Poland and the utterly horrific conditions that the Jewish people were left to face when the Germans came to Warsaw. Reading about the treatment they faced left me with horror as they were all humiliated and degraded on a daily basis, but they found a way to stick together and get through – dreaming of a better life.
As Daniel finds out more about his Polish family, he travels to become a spy in the hope he can get the answers he so desperately craves and you can only begin to imagine what is going through his head as to whether he’ll find out what he wants to know.
The story of Helena for me had the most impact. It was harrowing but full of hope and a tale of real bravery. The struggle to live day to day, not knowing what was in store for them all next was heroic and her dressmaking skills were what kept her going, and kept her sane. You are just aching for a happy ending to the story for all their sake
This was an epic and emotional story that lays bare the reality of life during the war for those being persecuted. The fear they faced on a daily basis alongside the determination to get through it for their own and their family’s sake. An exquisitely told historical story that will stay with me for a long time to come.
★★★★★
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