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| Rachel's Random Resources Book Tours |
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| Welcome to my Blog! Wander through worlds real and fictional, meet interesting people, visit exciting places and find good books to enjoy along the way! |
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| About the Book |
In the Shadow of War by Adrienne Chinn
One war may be over, but their fight for survival continues…
For sisters Etta, Jessie and Celie Fry, the Great War and the hardships of the years that followed have taken a heavy toll.
Determined to leave her painful past behind her, Etta heads to the bright lights of Hollywood whilst Jessie, determined to train as a doctor and use her skills to help others, is hampered by the men who dominate her profession. On the vast, empty plains of the Canadian prairies, Celie and her small family stand on the brink of losing everything.
As whispers of a new war make their way to each sister, each must face the possibility of the unthinkable happening again…
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| Read An Excerpt |
The following excerpt from In the Shadow of War, takes place in September 1933 in Naples, Italy. Christina Fry, the stylish 62-year-old mother of the three Fry sisters, Celie, Jessie and Etta, has just arrived in Naples on her way to Capri with her 18-year-old granddaughter Adriana Marinetti, Etta’s only child. They are met at the station by Mario Sabbatini, the 30-year-old son of the housekeeper of Christina’s Italian cousin, Stefania Albertini, who is now terminally ill. Adriana had grown up in Stefania’s villa on Capri with Mario and his mother and had developed a crush on him. She had been living in London with her grandmother after Etta’s nervous breakdown and transfer to a London mental hospital in 1929. This is their first time back in Italy since then.
Centrali Train Station, Naples, Italy
‘Signora Fry! Adriana!’
Adriana spots the tall, slender young man waving his hat at the end of the train platform and grabs Christina’s arm.
‘It’s Mario! Over there, Nonna! I knew he’d come.’ She drops her suitcase onto the paved platform and elbows her way through the stream of departing passengers as she dashes to greet him.
‘Adriana! Adriana, come back here at once!’
Christina expels a huff of exasperation. Mario, Mario, Mario. It had been all she’d heard from Adriana on the interminable train journey from London to Naples. She’d warned her granddaughter that a young man of thirty was hardly going to be interested in a girl of eighteen who was just starting her art studies in another country, but it had been like throwing pebbles at a brick wall. Her words had bounced off Adriana, leaving no indication of any impact whatsoever.
She tuts as she sees Adriana throw herself into the young Italian’s embrace. The results of her hard work teaching her granddaughter propriety over the past four years will no doubt succumb to the laxity of the existence Adriana had always enjoyed on Capri. She will have to remind Adriana of the seriousness of their visit and hope that it will inspire a sense of decorum in her lovesick granddaughter, though she knows only too well the spell this island can have on a romantic young girl.
She watches Adriana grab Mario’s hand and drag him through the passengers to where she has been abandoned with their luggage.
‘Nonna, Mario is coming to Capri with us! Isn’t that wonderful?’
Christina smiles tightly at the handsome, dark-haired Italian as she hands him her vanity case. ‘Thank you for meeting us, Mario. I hope we didn’t take you away from your teaching responsibilities at the Accademia di Belle Arti.’
Mario waves away her concerns. ‘That is nothing. Of course, I would come to meet you, Signora Fry. You are like my own family and Adriana is like my own little sister.’
Adriana’s thick dark eyebrows draw together. ‘I am not a child, Mario. I am an independent woman of eighteen. I am studying at the Slade College of Fine Art and I am living in my own flat in London.’
Christina raises her hand to attract a porter. ‘Adriana, you are living rent free in my Chelsea flat with two other girls and Hettie visits twice a week to wash your clothes, clean the flat and cook you two good meals. I give you an allowance for your other food and necessities. You are hardly independent.’
Adriana rolls her dark eyes. ‘Nonna, I am a student. How can I be expected to pay for all of that myself? Isn’t that true, Mario?’
‘Well, I don’t really—'
‘Some students have part-time jobs to help pay their way, Adriana,’ Christina says as watches the porter approach with a trolley. ‘Your mother, for all her many faults, worked at the Omega Workshops when she was at the Slade.’
‘And how did that turn out, Nonna? Mama only got herself into trouble working while she was studying, didn’t she? I’m saving you that anxiety.’
Christina sighs wearily. ‘Fine. I shall expect you to come top of your class. You will have some catching up to do when we get back to London what with missing a fortnight of your first term. You really should have stayed in London and got on with your studies. Heaven knows I am paying enough. Your mother’s the one who should be here. I am most disappointed that she’s made no effort to come. Etta owes our cousin Stefania a great deal.’
Adriana grunts as she hands Mario her suitcase to stack on the porter’s trolley. ‘Mama’s too busy trying to be a Hollywood star. It’s embarrassing. I’m glad she changed her name. I don’t want anyone knowing that Etta Marine is my mother.’
A whistle blows and a group of men in black shirts and beige knickerbockers barrels down the platform, shoving Christina and Adriana unceremoniously out of their way.
‘Lui è lì!’ one of them shouts as he points at a man coming off the train.
Christina clutches Mario’s hand to steady herself. ‘What on earth?’
Mario’s expression stiffens. ‘It is the Blackshirts. Mussolini’s Camicie Nere. They are nothing but thugs. Their motto is Me ne frego. It means “I do not give a damn”.’ He glances at Christina. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it? Italy has gone crazy.’
The whistle blows again, piercing the men’s shouts with its shrillness. The Blackshirts push their victim, a middle-aged man in an innocuous grey coat and black fedora, against a train carriage. Then they clamp his arms behind him and frogmarch him down the platform.
The man turns and catches Christina’s eye as he stumbles past her, but it is not fear she sees in his dark eyes. It is defiance.
BUY LINKS
About the author
Adrienne Chinn was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, grew up in Quebec, and eventually made her way to London, England after a career as a journalist. In England she worked as a TV and film researcher before embarking on a career as an interior designer, lecturer, and writer. When not up a ladder or at the computer writing, she often can be found rummaging through flea markets or haggling in the Marrakech souk. Her second novel, The English Wife -- a timeslip story set in World War II England and contemporary Newfoundland -- was published in June 2020 and has become an international bestseller. Her debut novel, The Lost Letter, was published by Avon Books UK in 2019. Love in a Time of War, the first in a series of four books in The Three Fry Sisters series, was published in February 2022. The second in the series, The Paris Sister, was published in February 2023, and the third book in the series, In the Shadow of War, was published in March 2024.
Social Media Links –
https://twitter.com/adriennechinn @adriennechinn
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