Wickwythe Hall

By: Judithe Little

Narrated by: Sarah Nichols

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

May 1940. Hitler invades France, a move that threatens all of Europe, and three lives intersect at Wickwythe Hall, an opulent estate in the English countryside - a beautiful French refugee, a take-charge American heiress, and a charming champagne vendeur with ties to Roosevelt and Churchill who isn't what he seems. There, secrets and unexpected liaisons unfold, until a shocking tragedy in a far-off Algerian port binds them forever....

Wickwythe Hall is inspired by actual people, places, and events, including Operation Catapult, a sea action in which Churchill launched a bloody attack on the French fleet to keep the powerful ships out of Hitler's reach. More than 1,000 French sailors, who just days before fought side-by-side with the British, perished. Humanizing this forgotten piece of history, Wickwythe Hall takes the listener behind the blackout curtains of upper-class England, through the bustling private quarters of Churchill's Downing Street, and along the tense back alleys of occupied Vichy, illustrating what it took to survive in the dark early days of World War II.

©2017 Judithe Little (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Refreshing change of storyline!

Not the typical storyline as most of the ww2 historical fiction novels. EXCELLENT narration. Being Southern born & bred, someone trying to fake a Southern accent usually grates like fingernails on a chalkboard. I have no idea of this narrator's Southern authenticity - she did a fabulous job!

Enjoyed

I love history and found this book to be ok. The voice of Churchill drove me crazy but that aside I did enjoy the story. Parts of course are sad and hard to take such as the air raids and bombings but knowing these did happen is what makes them hard to take. That is why history should not be forgotten so we don’t make these same errors in judgment in the future. I even looked up if there was a Wickwythe Hall!!

Three-fourths of the book is character development

The book starts with a good premise about a young girl living in a convent in France at the outbreak of WWII, and she is the only interesting character in the book. Then it devolves into character development of two boring Americans with improbable back stories. And when the book finally begins to get interesting in Marseilles during the Vichy regime, the next chapter jumps from 1940 to 1946. the war is over and there is a brief discussion of what the characters did during the intervening six years.

Just another Wiki novel, where an author does some research on Wikipedia and then tries to weave a story. This one fails.

Huh?

Disappointing at the end as the author rushed the ending! This ruined the drama
for me#

Suddenly raced to the end!

I loved every moment of this book.
Imagine my disappointment when it raced to an ending!
There was so much more I wanted to hear!

A long wait for nothing to happen.

Narrator was not for this story and Churchill voice was terrible. This story never goes anywhere and you don't care about thee characters. I suggest another historical fiction. Don't do it even if it is free.

Enjoyed learning about early WW 11 with France and England.

Slow to begin but much better as story took shape!
Good character development and plot.

Great perspective

Enthralling and enjoyable. Kept my attention so much so that while i quilt i listen to it and made all kinds of sewing errors because i was paying more attention to the book than my needle!!

Don’t bother

I really wanted to like this book, I feel like there were three okay story lines and if the author had focused on on or two of them, it might’ve been better. It seemed like the story was being invented as the author wrote it, not much thought going into it. I hoped the ending would make up for the whole book being a scattered mess, but it didn’t.

Ended abruptly

I was enjoying the story and when I thought things were really starting to happen it ended. Very disappointing. The performance was very good except for Churchill. She was a terrible Winston.

Calm.

Didn t quite take off. An authentic plot, but lacking drive, narration was very good.