Once More Unto the Breach

May 20, 2019
In August 1944, Welsh sheep farmer and WWI vet Rhys Gravenor, the narrator of this lackluster thriller from Holloway (A Thin Dark Line and one other romance suspense novel as Emma Elliot), arrives in Paris on the trail of his missing son, Owain. Owain left home in the early days of WWII after Rhys called him a coward for refusing to enlist in the military. In Paris, Rhys meets American Charlotte “Charlie” Dubois, who was studying at the Sorbonne when the war caught up with her and she volunteered for the Ambulance Field Service. Charlie joins Rhys on his travels across France and into the Alps. Despite Charlie’s denials that she possesses some knowledge of Owain, which Rhys is sure she has, the two develop a bond. Eventually, Rhys discovers that Owain was a war hero and hopes to be reunited with him to express a father’s pride. A little tension is introduced once it becomes clear that someone else is looking for Owain and is prepared to pry information from him by any means necessary. The ending is disappointing in its predictability. Fans of historical fiction with a light mystery element will best appreciate this effort.

May 1, 2019
This unusual debut draws from multiple genres and themes?historical thriller, romantic suspense, quest story, WWII adventure?to tell the harrowing tale of a Welsh sheep farmer, Rhys Gravenor, who sets out to find his son in France just after the liberation of Paris. Rhys teams up with Charlotte Dubois, an American ambulance driver, and the two attempt to follow the trail of Rhys' son, Owain, who seems to have been involved with the Resistance, possibly hiding art from the Nazis. Father and son became estranged when Owain declared himself a conscientious objector?anathema to Rhys, a WWI veteran, who still carries psychic wounds from the trenches. But Owain has found his own way to fight, as Rhys and Charlotte learn as they follow the young man's trail across France and into the Alps, skirmishing with all variety of belligerents, from German soldiers on the run through the dreaded Milice (Vichy paramilitaries fighting against the Resistance) and even Free French forces, intent on reprisals. Holloway writes vividly about the chaos of battle and of liberation, but she also tells a moving story of tenderness and love?perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)