As London endures nightly German bombings, Britain’s secret service whisks the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret from England, seeking safety for the royal heirs on an old estate in Ireland.
Ahead of the German Blitz during World War II, English parents from every social class sent their children to the countryside for safety, displacing more than three million young offspring. In The Secret Guests, the British royal family takes this evacuation a step further, secretly moving the princesses out of England entirely, to the estate of the Duke of Edenmore in “neutral” Ireland.
A female English secret agent, Miss Celia Nashe, and a young Irish detective, Garda Strafford, are assigned to watch over “Ellen” and “Mary” at Clonmillis Hall. But the Irish stable hand, the housemaid, the formidable housekeeper, the Duke himself, and other Irish townspeople, some of whom lost family to English gunshots during the War of Independence, go freely about their business in and around the great house. Soon suspicions about the guests’ true identities percolate, a dangerous boredom sets in for the princesses, and, within and without the Clonmillis acreage, passions as well as stakes rise.
Benjamin Black, who has good information that the princesses were indeed in Ireland for a time during the Blitz, draws readers into a novel as fascinating as the nascent career of Miss Nashe, as tender as the homesickness of the sisters, as intriguing as Irish-English relations during World War II, and as suspenseful and ultimately action-packed as the war itself.
“During German bombing raids on London during World War II, the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are secreted away to Ireland for protection. . . . As ever, Black’s gifts of rich description and deft characterization are on display, and . . . [the] second half positively gallops. When you’re done binge-watching The Crown, pick up this multifaceted wartime thriller.”
— Kirkus Reviews
Hardcover
US $27.00
ISBN: 9781250133014
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