Weekend Cooking/Blog Tour: The Girl from Normandy by Rachel Sweasey

 

Esther has loved everything French since she started learning the language during her teenage years in school. She lives in Dorset and often gets to travel to Normandy for work. It is her favourite place in France. She loves the food, the countryside, the culture, and she loves the Joubert family. 

Giselle Joubert was her high school pen friend, and when Esther's school did an exchange program, Esther stayed at the Joubert's rustic farm near the small town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise. There she met and had a schoolgirl love affair with Jules, Giselle's older brother. They stayed in contact for a while, but then the letters stopped coming. Even though Esther has visited the Jouberts many times since, she has rarely crossed paths with Jules and they barely made eye contact. Now Esther is going to be godmother to Giselle's second child, and Jules is going to be godfather, even if only by proxy if he can't be there in person.

On one of her previous visits, Esther had found a recipe book and between it's pages there was a sheet of paper which had a recipe for preserving wild garlic on one side and on the other a poem written in both French and English. Captivated, Esther kept the piece of paper but now she wonders if that was a mistake and so she is determined to ask elderly Grand-mere Joubert about the book and the poem.

The opening of the book focuses on a young woman living in Paris in late 1940. Marie-Claire is married to Benjamin, a Jew, and mother of a young child named Antoine. With the coming of the Nazis, the little family knows that they have to escape and so plans are made to catch the train to the south of France where she has family. However, things go terribly wrong, and Marie-Claire ends up travelling north to Caen, separated from her baby. There, she meets a man who, seeing her distress, takes her to a chateau where a small group are gathering to form a resistance group. With her hatred of the force that destroyed her family, Marie-Claire joins the group. 

Given her cooking skills, the perfect cover for Marie-Claire is to run a cafe in the small town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Here, she can listen into conversations and gain information to share with the Resistance, but she does become actively involved in some of the more dangerous activities of the group. One of her key roles though is to share messages through the community in the form of recipes which contained secret codes! Being busy doing something to undermine the Nazis gives her purpose and helps her begin to heal from her terrible losses. 

While we are learning about Marie-Claire's life and role in the war, in the modern story line, Jules and Esther finally have time to work through their dormant feelings for each other and decide if there is any chance of a future together. However, it is never going to be all plain sailing given that Jules has a very successful career in Paris and Esther lives in England. 

Throughout the story we hear about the role that Dorset played in the planning for the D-Day landings, about the paratrooper who got stuck on the spire of the church in the town and had to play dead for a few hours before he could be rescued and so much more.

We visited Normandy when we went to Europe and really loved it. We liked the WWII history, the food, and the cider was so good, as in really, really good. However, we couldn't visit every little town. It's a shame not to have visited Sainte-Mere-Eglise as there is an Airborne museum there, and they commemorate the paratrooper getting stuck which is based on a true story. When I was looking at some information about the town I found it really interesting that the coat of arms for the town now even includes two parachutes. 

I hadn't read Rachel Sweasey before and I am happy that I have now. I am really keen to read her back list each of which feature the region around Poole (which is where her family is from), and WWII France. I was interested to see that Rachel now lives in Brisbane. 

As part of the promotional information for the blog tour, we were sent a recipe for Marie-Claire's Poulet Vallee d'Auge which sounds delicious! Because this is a Weekend Cooking post, I had to share the recipe with you all!

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews, with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host, and with Foodies Read hosted at Based on a True Story. This also counts for my read on a theme book club where the current theme is War. Be sure to check out other stops on the tour shown below. Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. 

Rating 4/5

About the book

The Girl from Normandy

Paris, 1940: Marie-Claire steps into the Gare de Lyon, not knowing it will be the last time she'll see her husband and son. Fleeing occupied Paris, she travels into the countryside of Normandy, and stumbles upon a chateau near Caen and a growing resistance movement. Soon, Marie-Claire finds herself working in a cafe in the quiet village of Sainte-Mère-Église, where she tries to come to terms with all she has lost – but little does she realise that her presence in Normandy will change the course of history…

1998: Half a century later, Esther is returning to the Normandy village she visited as a teenager, seeking a break from her monotonous life. Back then, she'd fallen in love with a rustic farmhouse and the family that lived there – not least the charming eldest son, Jules Joubert. But now, when Esther discovers an old annotated cookbook in the family kitchen, she begins to realise that the place she holds so close to her heart may hide more secrets than even the Jouberts realise...

What stories does the area carry? And could this trip change Esther’s life for ever?

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/GirlfromNormandy

About the Author 

Rachel was born to English 10-pound-pom parents in sub-tropical Brisbane, Australia, and when the family moved back to Poole, Dorset, she was just 5 years old. She then grew up against the stunning backdrop of Poole Harbour where she sailed and played on the beaches of Brownsea Island and Studland, and walked across the Purbeck Hills, all of which inspired her imagination and provided the setting of her debut historical fiction novel set in WWII. Since then, Rachel has moved back to Brisbane, Australia.



Social Media Links –

Facebook: @RachelSweaseyAuthor
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Bookbub profile: @rachelsweaseyauthor

Weekly meals

Saturday - Beef Stroganoff and rice
Sunday - Leftover Beef Stroganoff
Monday - Spicy Pork and Bean Stirfry
Tuesday -  Steak, air fried sweet potato and vegies 
Wednesday - Pork chop, mashed potato, broccoli and gravy
Thursday - Enchiladas
Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page