Review: The Return

The Return by Anita Frank
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

First let me say that I found the blurb for this book very misleading - I even went back and reread it after I was half way through the book and I stand by my views.

This is what I thought the book was about based on the blurb. (view spoiler)[An estranged couple, maybe he was abusive, physically or mentally, or maybe it was a marriage of convenience and he was cold, he goes off to war and promises never to come back. He has an epiphany and returns determined to win back his wife and child. (hide spoiler)]This is not that book. (view spoiler)[Also, the book is all about Jack's return from the war, which doesn't happen until two-thirds of the way through the book, literally 66% on my Kindle!, and there is very little prior to that about Jack during the war. (hide spoiler)]

Frankly, this was disappointing. I would describe it as a Catherine Cookson novel with more details about farming techniques and set in the Southern Counties. Or maybe a poor man's Thomas Hardy set in WW2.

Since the blurb is so misleading I don't think I can even go into details about the plot, suffice to say it was pretty predictable (actually now I think about it there are some very strong similarities to Far From the Madding Crowd) from start to finish. Told in alternating time frames in 1939 and 1945 we see how Jack Ellison meets and marries Gwen before he goes off to war, and then when he returns. I didn't find Gwen a particularly sympathetic character, she was naïve and stupid both pre-war and after the war ended. Jack was more sympathetic but we didn't see enough of his POV.

I am surprised at all the gushing reviews from other authors, but then I always seem to oppose the majority.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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