SPOILERS!!!
Even though the title of the book mentions Christmas, this is not a Christmas book completely, as most of the plot is about the First World War.
The book starts in 1968, and Thomas Harding, an elderly man who knows he is going to die soon, travels to Paris for Christmas with his carer, Margaret. Christmas in Paris is an idea that repeats itself throughout the book as it was what young Thomas and his friends Will and Evie Elliott, and Alice planned to do before the war broke out. In Paris Thomas is to meet someone who we still don't know, and he starts reading all the letters from his time in the First World War.
The correspondence is mainly between Thomas and Evie Elliott. Thomas and his friend Will Elliott volunteered to join the war optimistically. Evie writes to both her brother and Tom, but Will's letters are scarce and brief. Evie knows about her brother from Tom, and she learns that Will has fallen for a French nurse, Amandine Morel.
Everybody thought that the war would end before Christmas, but that is not the case. Things become worse and worse, and Will dies. Evie and Tom are heartbroken. Tom's father is not well either, and things worsen for him when his house is hit by a bomb, and he is seriously injured. Tom's father owns a newspaper, and Tom has to tell his cousin John Hopper to lead the newspaper while his father is sick even though he doesn't like John, and neither does his father. Evie meets him, and John suggests she write a column from the perspective of a woman, and she does with great success. John is attracted to Evie, and she is not indifferent to him either. Yet, Evie does not know the real John, and it seems that there is a secret that Tom keeps but promised to father not to tell. Tom has some leave to see his father, and he and Evie spends some wonderful days together. After he leaves, his father dies but he has no more leave.
Alice, Evie's best friend, is certain that Evie loves Tom, and Evie finally admits it, but she thinks that Tom does not feel the same. Tom's letters become more and more pessimistic, and he stops writing at some point. It is Alice who finds him much to Evie's relief, and she tells Evie that Tom suffers from a mental breakdown. When Tom writes to Evie, he tells her that he is to be sent to Edinburgh to recovery. Evie does not hesitate to go to him, and he is there with him all these weeks before he is sent back to the front. Evie wrote a letter to him one Christmas opening her heart, but Tom makes no mention of it, and Evie does not know if he got it or not. When Tom goes back to the front, and Evie returns to London, she tells Alice that she is certain that Tom only sees her as a friend. Then John Hopper kisses her and proposes to her, and she does not know what to do.
Evie finds some letters from her brother among her mother's things, and she discovers something which is a well-hidden secret, which involves the nurse Will was in love with. So Evie writes to Amandine, but she doesn't reply. I wonder what the secret is. Maybe he married Amandine, or maybe Amandine got pregnant, and that is why she left for Paris.
Very emotional and captivating book.
No comments:
Post a Comment