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For American Claire Stewart, joining the French Resistance sounded as romantic as the storylines she hopes will one day grace the novels she wants to write. But when she finds herself stranded on English shores, with five French Jewish children she smuggled across the channel before Nazis stormed Paris, reality feels more akin to fear.
With nowhere to go, Claire throws herself on the mercy of an estranged aunt, begging Lady Miranda Langford to take the children into her magnificent estate. Heavily weighted with grief of her own, Miranda reluctantly agrees . . . if Claire will stay to help. Though desperate to return to France and the man she loves, Claire has few options. But her tumultuous upbringing—spent in the refuge of novels with fictional friends—has ill-prepared her for the daily dramas of raising children, or for the way David Campbell, a fellow American boarder, challenges her notions of love. Nor could she foresee how the tentacles of war will invade their quiet haven, threatening all who have come to call Bluebell Wood home and risking the only family she’s ever known.
Set in England’s lush and storied Lake District in the early days of World War II, and featuring cameos from beloved literary icons Beatrix Potter and C. S. Lewis, Until We Find Home is an unforgettable portrait of life on the British home front, challenging us to remember that bravery and family come in many forms.
My Thoughts:
Until We Find Home
was a story that quietly took me by surprise. The first few pages started out
quite fast and intense, and then life slowed down for our characters and I must
admit I felt antsy to move on in the story. I also did not care for the main
character of Claire at first either. I felt she was clueless and selfish and a
bit cruel in some of her dealings with the children. However, as I continued reading
and let the story take me through its pages and I let me expectations go, I was
quite astonished at how it seems that even I grew a bit with the characters as
their story unfolded.
This is a story of family. Of opening your heart to those
blessings that God has placed in your life. It may not be how you thought they
would be like, but they are blessings just the same. This story also deals with
letting go of our past hurts and even our dreams so that new and better dreams
can take their places.
This story takes place during the years of World War 2 and
deals with the refugee children that were sent away from their parents and
homes for their own safety, especially Jewish children from other countries. We
have British, American, Scottish, French, and German all trying to get along
and eventually becoming a true bona fide family. All the characters grew on me
and I enjoyed watching their journey from strangers to family. I also really
liked all the literary works and their authors that were mentioned throughout.
This was a thought-provoking and heartwarming tale.
Tyndale House Publishers has provided me with a
complimentary copy of this book. I was not required to post a positive review and
all views and opinions are my own.
About the Author:
Three-time Christy and two-time Carol and INSPY Award–winning and bestselling author Cathy Gohlke writes novels steeped with inspirational lessons, speaking of world and life events through the lens of history. She champions the battle against oppression, celebrating the freedom found only in Christ. Cathy has worked as a school librarian, drama director, and director of children's and education ministries. When not traveling to historic sites for research, she, her husband, and their dog, Reilly, divide their time between northern Virginia and the Jersey Shore, enjoying time with their grown children and grandchildren. Visit her website at www.cathygohlke.com and find her on Facebook at CathyGohlkeBooks.
Q&A with Cathy Gohlke
1. What inspired you to write Until We Find Home?
Alarmed by
the plight of young refugees fleeing gangs in Mexico to cross United States
borders, and heart heavy for victims and refugees worldwide who’ve suffered and
continue to suffer under oppressive regimes, I looked for a moment in history
to tell their tale as I wish it could play out. I didn’t have to look far. The
Kindertransport of 1938–1940 brought 10,000 predominantly Jewish children to
Great Britain for refuge from Nazi oppression. Accounts abound of men and women
who rescued children through resistance, often at great cost to themselves—even
life itself. But what happened next? What happened when those children entered
countries of refuge? I wondered about the average person and what role they might
have played once the children were out of immediate danger . . . and what role
we might play in the world’s need today.
The UN Refugee Agency reported that in 2015, 51% of the world’s refugees
were children. Jesus told us to care for widows and orphans. How do we do that
from where we live, and as Christians, how do we reconcile Jesus’ directive
with the world’s reality and our need for safe borders? The characters’
personalities were in inspired, in part, by people I know (the youngest
character, Aimee, was inspired by my granddaughter). Some of the children’s
antics and some of the older characters’ struggles were inspired by my own life
stories, including Miranda’s journey with cancer. Bluebell Wood’s secret garden
and many of the books and poems Claire loves in the story are based on books
and poems I grew up knowing and loving—thanks especially to my dear
grandmother, who read to me. This novel embodies a great many things important
to me. It is, in some ways, my victory book through battling cancer.
2. The novel is set during WWII in England’s Lake
District—not a location we typically think of in relation to the war. What is
unique about this location and why did you choose to set your novel there?
England’s magnificent Lake District—breathtakingly beautiful
and pristine—might seem an unlikely place to portray wartime life on the home
front. In reality, the area demonstrates just what could happen to an
unsuspecting English village—a location that seemed safe and far from the
maddening war. Because of its apparent safety, the Sunderland Flying Boat
Factory built an entire village—Calgarth—there to house its employees and
manufacture its flying boats for the war effort. After the war, those empty
buildings set amid the peaceful and beautiful Lake District became temporary
homes for the Windermere Boys—over 300 children who had barely survived Nazi
concentration camps in Europe and who were in desperate need of rest and restoration.
Nearby Grizedale Hall became one of the first prisoner of war camps for German
prisoners—particularly naval officers. In Keswick, a nondescript pencil
factory, which had supplied the nation’s pencils for years, secretly created
spy pencils during the war—pencils with hollow barrels in which tightly rolled
maps were hidden to aid British aviators shot down over enemy territory. In
each eraser was a compass. The region,
like other areas deemed “safe,” took in child evacuees from Britain and refugees
from foreign lands. The Lake District was also the home of Beatrix Potter
Heelis—worldrenowned children’s author and illustrator. Including the whimsy of
snippets from her stories and her ironic character as an older woman during
these years provided a contrast and relief from the fear of invasion that
residents endured for years. These were just a few of the things that drew me
to this portion of England’s “green and pleasant land.”
3. How do you expect the novel, especially the struggles of
your characters, to resonate with your audience? Until We Find Home confronts
fear and the lies we tell ourselves about our need to become worthy in order to
be loved and valued.
Freedom from our own demons, forgiveness received and
given, and redemption through Christ are available to all who believe. Claire learns that repentance and belief
opens a personal relationship with Christ (not simply a “legal transaction”)
leading to the abundant life He died to give us. Miranda learns that dying with
grace and dignity is not as important as learning to live in God’s grace. These
are things I’ve had to learn in life, and I hope these characters’ journeys
spill into the hearts of readers. I also hope readers will ponder this: Most of
us live quiet lives, rarely making decisions that change the world. But what if
we could change the life of one person by providing a home and family for them?
How would we cope with the everydayness, not to mention the prejudice, public
opinion, injustice, necessary sacrifice, and potential crises? Would we do it?
Will we? There are no easy answers, and the answers are not the same for
everyone. But we have been made for hard things. Will we stand up or sit
down? I also hope that the writings of
C. S. Lewis will be brought to the attention of readers who may not know him or
who may want to revisit his books. His was a voice of reason in a terrifying
time—a voice of integrity and purpose that is needed in our day.
4. Can you tell us about the historical research that went
into writing this novel? Did you learn anything new that surprised you?
Knowing I would set this story during WWII in England’s Lake
District, in 2014 I traveled with my friend and writing colleague Carrie
Turansky to England and Scotland, where we both did research for our book
projects. For me, we traveled to Windermere and the Lake District to research
Beatrix Potter and her renowned Hill Top Farm, explore the poetry and world of
Wordsworth, and learn just what happened to refugees and evacuees in the
district during WWII. As a result I
learned more about the Sunderland Flying Boat Factory and its village of
Calgarth, camps for German prisoners of war including Grizedale Hall, wartime
homes for British evacuees and foreign refugees, the Keswick Pencil Museum and
the famous spy pencil, the postwar arrival of the Windermere Boys, and so much
more. I ran my fingers over the desk
where Wordsworth had carved his name as a boy, visited his burial ground, and
fell in love with that poet’s fields of golden daffodils, the heady perfume of
lilacs, the glory of woodlands spread with sapphire carpets of bluebells, and
newborn lambs tottering across the fells, butting tiny heads against their
mothers’ sides in search of lunch. We ferried across Lake Windermere, ate
Grasmere’s famous gingerbread, and took tea with jam and bread. Nowhere is the
grass greener or the air purer than the Lake District in springtime. Beatrix
Potter Heelis’s Hill Top Farm, with its rooms and their contents reminiscent of
her books, was a real treat. During WWII, Hill Top Farm housed British
evacuees. Our research trip culminated
when we joined a ten-day tour of Scotland’s “Highlands, Islands, and Gardens,”
guided by Liz Curtis Higgs. Forty ladies followed in Liz’s wake as she inspired
us through Bible study each morning, then guided us through magnificent
Scotland by day. As a result of that trip, I could not help but include in my
story a good Scottish doctor, as well as memories of the terrible feud between
the MacDonalds and Campbells. In regard to that feud, we visited Glencoe and
the site of that terrible massacre. That was the travel portion of my research.
Internet investigations and the reading of books, old and new, continued for
months. Included in those books were wartime diaries, especially those compiled
from Britain’s Mass Observation Project; day-by-day histories of the war waged
against Britain; journals and letters from Beatrix Potter Heelis; journals,
letters, and biographies of C. S. Lewis; the books and notes of C. S. Lewis;
the history of Glencoe; biographies and histories of Sylvia Beach and details
of Shakespeare and Company, the American bookstore in Paris; studies of
Europe’s child refugees housed in Britain; and so much more. Perhaps the most
fun was found in rereading childhood classics.
5. Stories of wartime like Until We Find Home highlight the
difficulty of living in uncertainty and dealing with the unexpected on a daily
basis. How does faith play into this aspect of the novel and into the novel
more generally?
Each day is a gift, not a guarantee. Each day offers us a new
beginning to remain focused on what we can do, to stay in the moment with our
eyes on the Giver of Life, rather than to cower, paralyzed because we don’t
know how we’ll deal with tomorrow. This is faith that Claire learns—faith we
all learn—to live in the present and surrender the future, and our worry for
the future, to God. Knowing that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our
Father’s knowledge—and that we are more valuable than many sparrows—is a
reminder that “God’s got this.” It doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen—as
Claire learned and Miranda knew. Jesus assured us that there will be trouble in
this world. But the good news is that we don’t go it alone—He is with us, and He has overcome
the world. Fear, as Claire learned, is a pinpoint in time, but faith is
long-term—eternity driven—and sees the bigger picture.
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