Goodnight from London by Jennifer Robson"In the summer of 1940, ambitious young American journalist Ruby Sutton gets her big break: the chance to report on the European war as a staff writer for Picture Weekly newsmagazine in London. She jumps at the chance, for it’s an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.
Although most of Ruby’s new colleagues welcome her, a few resent her presence, not only as an American but also as a woman. She is just beginning to find her feet, to feel at home in a country that is so familiar yet so foreign, when the bombs begin to fall.
As the nightly horror of the Blitz stretches unbroken into weeks and months, Ruby must set aside her determination to remain an objective observer. When she loses everything but her life, and must depend upon the kindness of strangers, she learns for the first time the depth and measure of true friendship – and what it is to love a man who is burdened by secrets that aren’t his to share.
Goodnight from London, inspired in part by the wartime experiences of the author’s own grandmother, is a captivating, heartfelt, and historically immersive story that readers are sure to embrace."
So I'm going to be completely honest, I picked up this book at a Meijer at 2am when I went in to grab contact solution and had to walk by the book stands on the way to check-out. Needless to say, I finished it in a day!
The protagonist Ruby was so likeable and complex who continued to grow through our time with her. While reading Robson's novel I felt transported to the historic, cobbled streets of 1940's war-time London, where the diligent and hard-working Londoners persevere day in and day out. The richly researched details and events truly made me wish this novel never ended. But aside from Ruby, London, and the research, the rest of the experience also had merit. Specifically, I LOVED that the real crux of this novel was about Ruby finding a real "home" in London and about her passionate effort to truly be the best journalist SHE could be. Don't get me wrong, I love a good single-trajectory romance novel. But the relationship between Ruby and Bennett was like a lovely slow-growing ivy. It grew organically, in small snippets, yet it did not leave me feeling like the whole aspect shouldn't even be apart of the novel or that it was on the back-burner. I love the way Robson structured the whole novel, it felt so real and immersive.
There were a couple things that I thought detracted from the novel however. For one, the book jumps forward to a new date every chapter, often without any real indication at what Ruby was doing those x months. Additionally, I thought the pacing overall was great...until right towards the end. It started to feel rushed, as if the author really wanted to include a few more experiences or situations but was running out of pages or time. But besides that, there were a couple small, nit-picky plot holes that could have been expanded on or explained later.
Overall, I would completely recommend this novel. It left me craving another historical fiction with some romance set in London during WWII!
