Smoke Portrait

October 1, 2012

Set in 1936, this novel by Canadian-British author Kent (Stones for My Father) tells the story of a young woman and a teenage boy brought together through a twist of fate and their longing to find their place in a world on the brink of war. Having accidentally received a letter addressed to a prisoner, lonely Belgian teenager Marten responds to Glen, an Englishwoman in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), and an unlikely friendship is born. While the correspondence is based on a lie, the letters reveal truths about their writers living amid betrayal, love, and death. VERDICT Readers will be swept from vividly brutal scenes of hatred to tender moments of love and will likely remember Kent's sensitively drawn characters and artful prose long after closing the book. Recommended for all fiction readers, especially historical fiction fans.--Andrea Brooks, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2012
Is who we pretend to be really who we are, who we wish to be, or a combination of both? Kent's first novel, set in mid-1930s England, Belgium, and Ceylon, wraps those philosophical questions in an intriguing story of deception, revelation, and redemption. Bored with her staid British existence, 23-year-old Glynis (Glen) Phayre begins corresponding with whom she believes to be a political prisoner. In a quirky turn of the plot, her pen pal turns out to be a 13-year-old Belgian boy flirting with membership in a right-wing fascist youth group. The letters continue after Glen moves to her aunt's Ceylonese tea plantation, and the world marches toward war as inevitably as the two correspondents move toward self-realization. The intertwined narratives provide global and personal perspectives on notions of love, independence, and justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)