the summer before the war by helen simonson

Beatrice’s youth and beauty aren’t really a problem for Agatha, but she is concerned that the school’s board of governors will balk when they see their new teacher isn’t quite the elderly, matronly woman they were expecting.

It seems her patroness, one Agatha Kent, was expecting someone older and a bit more conventional. She is a bit less gratified once she gets there. She is therefore extremely gratified when she is chosen as the Latin mistress at a local grammar school in East Sussex. When she finds herself orphaned at the age of 23 she realizes that her days of a rather bohemian style of life are at an end she must make a living and there are relatively few opportunities for a woman to do so in 1914. Beginning, quite literally, in the summer of 1914, before war is declared, this is a gently critical novel of Edwardian sensibilities and their prejudices regarding sex, gender, class and charity.īeatrice Nash has spent most of her life abroad, traveling with her famous scholarly father. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. ( From the publisher.Many, many novels have claimed to be “for fans of Downton Abbey.” Most of those tales do not live up to the hype but Helen Simonson’s The Summer Before the War, while making no such claim, actually delivers on that promise. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.īut just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end.įor despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking-and attractive-than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be.

Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything.Īnd Agatha has more immediate concerns she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set.Įast Sussex, 1914.

The summer before the war by helen simonson