A Promise to Arlette

Burdick (The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey) spins a beguiling tale of a WWII war bride whose memories of her earlier life in France are triggered by a photograph. In 1952, Ida Whipple lives a seemingly idyllic life in Lexington, Mass., as mother to two young daughters and wife to Sidney, a former Air Force gunner she met during the war. When the Whipples’ neighbor Ellen, whom Sidney jilted when he married Ida, brags about her acquisition of a photograph purportedly by Man Ray, Ida is shocked to recognize the photo as a fake taken by her French friend, Arlette, who is one of the image’s masked nude subjects, along with Ida. The photograph also resurrects Ida’s long-buried guilt over not saving Arlette from being captured by the Nazis. Ida steals the photo and travels with it to California, where Man Ray lives, determined to find out why it was credited to him. Sidney, desperate to get his wife back, drives cross-country with the girls in search of her. As Ida and Sidney make their separate journeys westward, they uncover startling revelations. The plot unfolds at a breakneck clip, and Burdick artfully highlights the difficult choices her central characters made to ensure their survival, even if it meant going against their moral compasses. This resonates. Agent: Stephanie Delman, Trellis Literary Management. (June)