Review: Summerland by Lucy Adlington

Happy publication day to Summerland by Lucy Adlington! 

October, 1946. The Red Cross escort a group of child refugees from Europe to England. Among them is Brigitta - a serious, silent figure with worn clothes and a small cardboard suitcase containing a single grey glove. Arriving in London, Brigitta breaks from the group and runs . . .

Brigitta's mission: to reach Summerland Hall and find the one person who can solve a wartime mystery. But Summerland holds secrets and shadows of its own... and perhaps the key to a new life and new beginnings.

An extraordinarily rich tale of love, prejudice, truth and forgiveness, inspired by real events.

The blurb for this book instantly appealed to me - I'm a sucker for a country house full of secrets, and this is a twist on the genre that I haven't encountered before. Brigitta Igeul, Austrian, Jewish, survivor of the Second World War, comes to England as a Red Cross refugee. She breaks from her group and makes for Summerland - a northern country estate with a mysterious connection to her past. As she settles and adapts to English life at Summerland (even if she can't quite get to grips with colloquial Yorkshire dialect), we begin to learn more about her tragic past, and just what she had to endure to keep herself alive during the war. From the locals of East Summer to the family and staff at Summerland, there is a real sense of community about this book. Some characters you'll love (even the author says that Mrs Rover is the surprise star of the show), and others you'll hate, and the tensions and issues surrounding refugees and opinions/attitudes towards them resonate particularly strongly in the current climate.

Despite the potentially harrowing subject matter, I found this book to be full of hope. The world is slowly picking itself back up after the war. Brigitta is searching for her future, whatever that might be. Aircraft hangers are now dance halls. But of course some wounds take longer to heal than others. I had an idea of where the story was going, and why Brigitta had gone to Summerland, but there's a twist in the tale that I certainly didn't see coming!

This is my first book by Lucy Adlington, but there's a few clever references in Summerland to her previous novel The Red Ribbon, so I'm hoping to pick that one up soon! Young Adult historical fiction is a genre I rarely come across (I didn't actually realise Summerland was YA when I requested it), and in this respect this story and its themes is massively important, and I hope that younger readers who perhaps haven't studied the Second World War can learn something from it - I certainly did! 

**Thanks to Readers First for sending me a copy in exchange for a review!**