Harriet and Maeve first meet in Coventry on the day that Harriet has seen her young husband, Owen off to France during WWI. The two young women spend an afternoon riding the new invention of a double decker bus, enjoying the afternoon in the belief that the war will be over in a couple months. They promise to meet the next day though they have not exchanged names, but Maeve is unable to make it.

The rest of the short novel takes place on the night of November 14, 1940 during the bombing of Coventry by the Germans. Harriet, now in her 40's, fills in on fire watch at the cathedral for her injured neighbor and meets Jeremy, a young man of 22. When the bombing begins, they team up and care for one another as they move through the maelstrom, trying to decide what to do. Maeve is also in the city and is at the pub drawing sketches when the air raid begins. It is slowly revealed that Jeremy is her son. The relentlessness of the night is conveyed by excellent writing.

Maeve, Jeremy, and Helen move through that night observing death, destruction, loss, and pain. It is an exploration of private griefs, relationships born of circumstance, and threads of connection that give meaning to lives. Maeve is an artist and Helen is a writer and their observations and expressions through their art add nuance to the story. ( )

This beautiful and quite short novel was the perfect distraction for me while I sat on hold for two hours today waiting for my turn to talk to someone at Social Security. It is primarily the story of one day in the lives of two people during the Blitz in England. Harriet Marsh, a forty-something widow, is enlisted as a fire-watcher to fill in for a disabled friend and the boy on the cathedral roof with her is Jeremy Fisher, a young man in his twenties and new to Coventry. When the cathedral is bombed, the two of them escape together and set out in search of Jeremy’s mother.

To say more would give away plot, and I always strive to never do that. What I can tell you is that by the end of the novel you feel you really know both Harriet and Jeremy, just as they come to know one another. What can you know or feel about a person you have just met when they share a moment in time with you unlike any other you have ever experienced? Does the attachment last beyond the moment? Can a memory form an attachment in itself? What is there to cling to when your world and everything you own is destroyed before your eyes?

Helen Humphreys is a powerhouse writer. She can pack more into 200 pages than many authors are able to put into 600. Her works are always sprinkled with tidbits of wise observation that make you nod your head in agreement.

Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.

Harriet does not like the idea of the story bleeding through into real life. She trusts a story, and doesn’t trust real life. But what makes her trust a story is the knowledge that it will stay where it is, that she can visit it but that there is no chance it will visit her.

I have surely used reading over the course of my life to escape reality, to lessen loneliness and to sink into a world that felt more real than anything going on in my own. Which reader doesn’t understand that part of the thrill of the book is that you can experience danger and be in none, feel heartache without suffering the betrayal, travel the world without leaving your doorway?

She has been happy with the rhythm of her days. It is not as though she’s greedy for happiness, but she wishes that she’d been able to recognize it completely when she had it.

Goes without saying that I have experienced this. You cannot reach my age without wishing you had lived a little more fully in some of the ordinary wonder that you took for granted.

The end of this book was poignant and unexpected, another thing Humphrey’s does well. I closed the last page a bit grateful to the bureaucracy that kept me holding, for without it I would not have slid this little gem off the shelf and had such a pleasant experience today. ( )

This is the second book by Humpreys I've read that takes place in England during WWII. Both are centered on the lives of common women and how they are affected by war experiences. Both are beautifully written.

Harriet Marsh is standing on the roof of Coventry cathedral on the night of Nov 14 working as a fire watcher. While she admires the full moon and glittering frost below, she hears the drone of the first bombers, the prelude to the Luftwtte moving its target from the industrial district of Coventry to the residential.

Also on the roof is a teenager, Jeremy. Both Jeremy and Harriet survive the strikes on the cathedral though they are not unaffected by it. Harriet stays with Jeremy, helping him search through the buring city for his mother. ( )

Set during the night of the destruction by bombing of Coventry Cathedral in WWII ( )

This is a formidable piece of writing! ( )