RATING: OKAY
SPOILERS!!!
I have to say that I enjoyed reading about Harry Clifton and his life from the moment he was a small child, but I found the last part a bit too dramatic and unbelievable.
Even though Harry first refuses to go to school, it is thanks to Old Jack that he takes his schooling seriously. Thanks to his good voice, he is admitted to the choir, and that makes it possible for him to go to grammar school. Harry makes friends with two other boys, Giles Barrington and Deakins, and they become their best friends. Giles and Harry are linked by a past they are not aware of. Giles's father, Hugo, is the man who Maisie went to bed with before getting married, and Arthur Clifton worked for him. The secret of Arthur's death is that Hugo left him die. Stan, Maisie's brother, hurried to tell Hugo that his brother-in-law was trapped in the hull of a ship. Even though Hugo went to see if he heard something, he turned his head without sending anyone there. Then Hugo tried to buy Stan's silence, and he accepted the money, but then Hugo sent the police after him, claiming that he had stolen his money. That is why Stan went to prison for several years, and when he was released, Hugo bought his silence by giving him a job.
From the moment Hugo meets Harry, he knows that there is a possibility that he can be his illegitimate son, which will mean that he may inherit the title before his own son. So Hugo hires a detective to keep an eye on Maisie. The woman first starts working in a cafe, then is offered a job in a hotel, and when Tilly, the owner of the café, retires, she buys the café. However, things don't go well when a supplier who is obsessed with her burns down the cafe, and she has to return to the hotel. Then she loses the job when Hugo tells his boss that Maisie often hooks up with customers. Losing the job means she won't have money to keep Harry studying, so she decides to accept a job in a night club, which she keeps a secret from Harry, and when he discovers the truth just before gaining a place at Oxford, he gets very upset.
Harry falls for Emma, Giles's sister, when he is in Rome for some studying and Giles takes his sister to visit his friend. Emma and Harry are smitten, and when he asks her to marry him, she accepts readily. The day of the wedding when the priest claims that if someone has any reason why Emma and Harry can't get married, they should talk. It is Jack who speaks up, saying that it is right for him to say that Harry may be Hugo's illegitimate son, and therefore, Emma's half-brother. The wedding is cancelled, and Emma flees to Scotland with her mother where Elizabeth starts divorce proceedings. Emma also tells her mum that she is pregnant and doesn't know what she will tell her son/daughter about their father.
That night they find old Jack dead in his old home.Harry then decides to join a ship thanks to Walter Barrington. Harry learns the ropes around the ship from the captain. There are two other officers, Jim Patterson and Tom Bradshaw. It is then that the war is declared, and a German submarine torpedoes the ship, and the ship is sunk. Harry is trapped and thinks he is going to die. Yet, when he wakes up, he is being looked after by a nurse in a new ship. Next to him there is another one of the crew, and he discovers that it is Bradshaw, the American officer. That night Bradshaw dies, and Harry decides to take his identity. That way Emma will be free to love someone else, and he won't give anyone else problems. So he tells the nurse he is Bradshaw, but Harry writes to his mother, explaining him that Harry Clifton is dead now and his new name is Bradshaw, and he hopes to return to England soon.
Harry has problems when Kristin, the nurse, keeps asking questions. He doesn't know much about Bradshaw because the man didn't speak much about himself. When they arrive in New York, he has to go through customs, and then two men dressed in grey grab him and arrest him, and when he asks what the charges are, they say it is murder.
I have to say that I enjoyed the book but there are parts which for me didn't make sense. Arthur dying in the hull of the ship wihtout anyone knowing for sure is not something I can believe. What about his body? Didn't anybody find it? And the reason why Maisie and Stan lied about Arthur and his death is also difficult to believe.
I didn't like the part in which Emma and Harry fall in love, and neither Maisie nor Hugo says anything, and it is Jack who reveals the truth. It is too dramatic for my taste, and then Harry's reasons for changing his identy are quite feeble in my opinion.
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