The Words I Never Wrote

In her latest, Thynne (the Clara Vine mystery series) memorably portrays how the bond shared by two sisters can be fractured by politics and war. In 2016 New York City, photographer Juno Lambert purchases a 1931 Underwood Portable typewriter as a photo prop and discovers inside it an unfinished manuscript written by deceased WWII reporter Cordelia Capel. The manuscript tells the story of Cordelia and her sister, Irene, who married German lawyer and industrialist Ernst Weissmuller in 1936 England and moved to Germany. After the wedding, Cordelia moves to Paris and works for journalist Torin Fairchild. As the Nazi party gains more control in Germany, Cordelia and Irene continue to write to one another. Irene’s letters are filled with information about parties with high-ranking Nazi officials, and she never answers Cordelia’s questions in her letters about the brutality of the Nazis. After Torin leaves Paris to rescue a fellow journalist in Spain, Cordelia returns to London where she is recruited to prepare British agents to go undercover in France. After reading the partially finished manuscript, Juno is determined to find out more about Cordelia and takes an assignment in Berlin, where she is able to uncover more about Irene and Cordelia. Thynne’s elegant narrative immerses the reader in war-torn Europe while potently showing the division that forms between Cordelia and Irene. Fans of WWII fiction with strong female characters will be immersed in this magnetic novel. [em]Agent: Caradoc King, United Agents. (Jan.) [/em]