Synopsis (from Goodreads)
Pages: 512
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Released: 26th of March 2015 (First Published 1993)
Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé are waiting for her in safety, Ruth is stuck in Vienna with no way to escape. Then she encounters her father’s younger college professor, the dashing British paleontologist Quin Sommerville.
Together, they strike a bargain: a marriage of convenience, to be annulled as soon as they return to safety. But dissolving the marriage proves to be more difficult than either of them thought—not the least because of the undeniable attraction Quin and Ruth share. To make matters worse, Ruth is enrolled in Quin’s university, in his very classes. Can their secret survive, or will circumstances destroy their love?
What I Have to Say
I wish I could have gotten into this, I really do. The first Eva Ibbotson book I read was The Secret Countess. I adored it. The writing was beautiful and the story was enchanted and it's left me with the feeling that I want to grab and read every other Eva Ibbotson book that I've found. But it's hard. This and the other one I've tried, Magic Flutes, have been so slow and hard to get through and though the prose is absolutely beautiful and the stories are gorgeous, I just can't get past the slowness.
As I said though, this was a beautiful. Set against the backdrop of WW2 there was plenty of potential danger as Ruth tried to flee Vienna. And her character was beautiful. Her joy in everything new that she experienced. Her love for everyone and everything around him. I think Ruth is someone that everyone can learn from when it comes from optimism and the beauty of the world.
In the end, it was a lovely story but just far too slow for me so my search for another Eva Ibbotson book that I like continues.
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