The London bookshop affair: a novel of the Cold War

The postwar peace in London during the early 1960s is an uneasy one. Physical and psychological remnants of WWII's destruction are evident, while concerns about the growing international nuclear threat escalates. For Celia Duchesne, the two phenomena collide in a personal life that for the naive young bookshop clerk was as much about new beginnings as it was about an unsettled past. When Celia learns of a sister who died in a Nazi concentration camp, she questions everything about her oppressive upbringing by two emotionally distant parents. Encouraged by her best friend, Daphne, Celia investigates her sister's perplexing past while joining Daphne in London's emerging anti-nuke protest movement. The sudden romantic attentions of Septimus Nelson, a dashing American diplomat, further complicate Celia's reconciliation of a family scandal mired in British spy operations with an uncertain future reliant on equally secretive back channel negotiations. Based on actual events that occurred during the global missile crisis of October 1962, Fein's historical novel examines this pivotal era through an intensely personal lens.

The postwar peace in London during the early 1960s is an uneasy one. Physical and psychological remnants of WWII's destruction are evident, while concerns about the growing international nuclear threat escalates. For Celia Duchesne, the two phenomena collide in a personal life that for the naive young bookshop clerk was as much about new beginnings as it was about an unsettled past. When Celia learns of a sister who died in a Nazi concentration camp, she questions everything about her oppressive upbringing by two emotionally distant parents. Encouraged by her best friend, Daphne, Celia investigates her sister's perplexing past while joining Daphne in London's emerging anti-nuke protest movement. The sudden romantic attentions of Septimus Nelson, a dashing American diplomat, further complicate Celia's reconciliation of a family scandal mired in British spy operations with an uncertain future reliant on equally secretive back channel negotiations. Based on actual events that occurred during the global missile crisis of October 1962, Fein's historical novel examines this pivotal era through an intensely personal lens. Copyright 2023 Booklist Reviews.

Fein's (The Hidden Child) latest thrusts readers into the thick of the Cold War. It is 1962, and 19-year-old Celia Duchesne works in a South London antiquarian bookshop, stifled by both her uneventful life and overly strict parents. A whirlwind romance coupled with the discovery of a forgotten file, however, soon tip Celia's world on its axis as she begins to question everything she thought she knew about her "ordinary" life. Is her new employer—a glamorous American divorced woman—and all of her strange visitors really who they seem to be? Who was Jeannie Duchesne, code name Anya, and why have her parents never mentioned her? Suddenly nothing in Celia's life is certain anymore, but with the world seemingly at the brink of a nuclear war, it may not matter. VERDICT This dual-timeline story, which bounces readers between Nazi-occupied France and a London in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis, will keep readers on the edge of their seats with its many twists and turns. In this gripping story of love and betrayal, loosely based on real-life figures and events, even the author's note at the end is a riveting must-read.—Rebecca Moe