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The London House by Katherine Reay

Reanne Powell


Another great book by Katherine Reay! The London House perfectly blends mystery, family redemption, and a subtle second chance romance.


Caroline learns about a long-held family secret from an old college friend, Mat. They travel to London to discover the truth about Caroline’s British great aunt and whether or not she betrayed her country in WWII. The story jumps back and forth between present day, and letters written by Caroline’s aunt and grandmother.


I loved how this book explored the theme of family wounds and how deeply the past can affect us. It really showed the importance of digging into those hard places in order to bring about greater truth and freedom. Although the theme did create a heaviness in the characters, the story wasn’t without hope.


I’d recommend this one to lovers of historical fiction, and basically anyone who loves a good story.


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Overall: 4/5

Age: 16+

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Find it at your local bookstore or online:

Canada: Paperback - Kindle - Audio



From the back cover:


Uncovering a dark family secret sends one woman through the history of Britain’s World War II spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris to save her family’s reputation.


Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian, but Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover.


Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London. She and Mat discover diaries and letters that reveal her grandmother and great-aunt were known as the “Waite sisters.” Popular and witty, they came of age during the interwar years, a time of peace and luxury filled with dances, jazz clubs, and romance. The buoyant tone of the correspondence soon yields to sadder revelations as the sisters grow apart, and one leaves home for the glittering fashion scene of Paris, despite rumblings of a coming world war.


Each letter brings more questions. Was Caroline’s great-aunt actually a traitor and Nazi collaborator, or is there a more complex truth buried in the past? Together, Caroline and Mat uncover stories of spies and secrets, love and heartbreak, and the events of one fateful evening in 1941 that changed everything.

In this rich historical novel from award-winning author Katherine Reay, a young woman is tasked with writing the next chapter of her family’s story. But Caroline must choose whether to embrace a love of her own and proceed with caution if her family’s decades-old wounds are to heal without tearing them even further apart.

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