Lisa Newman's teachers urge her to continue her education, but her lower-middle-class family is counting on her going to work, like everyone else. Then her father dies unexpectedly, and Lisa stays in school until, at 16, fluent in French and German, she takes a post as a governess to a French family's children at their estate in France. When World War II breaks out, Lisa joins the French Resistance at the request of a friend of her employer's. She and Etienne form an attachment, although she doubts his feelings for her. A dangerous brush with German soldiers leaves her ill and in despair over all the war deaths, and Etienne's absence, so she goes home. There, Lisa is at loose ends until all her dreams come true in this involving and authentic tale of the heights one person can achieve. Maria Hatton
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Product Description
A late summer, 1939. England and France.
Lisa Newman's photographic memory and linguistic skills make her no ordinary girl. On leaving school she goes to France to teach English to the Dubois children, and finds a home from home. Then World War II breaks out and Lisa is urged, for her own safety, to return to her family in their Somerset village. Reluctantly she decides her place is with her mother and brother, until the day that her old employer turns up with the charismatic Etienne Arnaud to offer her a unique and dangerous proposition: she is to return to France, assuming the role of Etienne's cousin.
As Lisette Arnaud, Lisa has no difficulty in passing herself off as a bona fide Frenchwoman far harder is resisting her feelings for Etienne, and dealing with the traumatic chain of events that lead her through heartache and loss to ultimately discover where her heart belongs.
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