Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase
Louise Walters
Review by Priscilla Comen
Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase
Louise Walters
Review by Priscilla Comen
Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase, by Louise Walters is a delightful story of two women: Roberta, who works in a used book store in modern times, and her 109 year old grandmother, Dorothea, when she was forty, during the early days of World War II in England. Author Walters takes us back and forth between the two women and the events that change their lives. Dorothea was married to Albert whom her mother disliked. Albert abandoned her. Roberta likes her employer, Philip, but has a beau, a married man.
Dorothea helps a man who crashes his plane on her family's farm. A squadron leader, the handsome Polish man brings her flowers to thank her. On his next visit he brings her a phonograph player and records, and invites her to attend a local dance on Saturday night. Dorothea sits alone there. Later, Roberta goes to visit her grandmother at her nursing home. Grandmother says “Who are you?” The polish airman, Jan, writes letters to Dorothea and she answers them. Author Walters uses the letters to move their love story forward. Dorothea puts them in her suitcase with her stillborn baby’s clothes. London is bombed by the Germans, and Jan shoots down German planes.
Dorothea’s missing husband comes home, but only for one day. Jan returns to Dorothea on Christmas Day 1940 with a wounded arm. He stays overnight and she is happy with him. Roberta, on the other hand, is screamed at by the wife of the man with which she had been having an affair. Nina, one of the girls who works at the farm, delivers a baby boy, but doesn’t want to keep it, as she is ashamed there is no marriage, and feels she doesn’t know how to be a mother at only nineteen years of age.
What happens to the baby? Do Dorothea and Jan marry? Does Roberta find out the true story of her grandmother Dorothea’s life? This is an intriguing story that holds the reader’s interest. Find it in the fiction room under author Walter’s name, at your Mendocino Community Library.
Dorothea helps a man who crashes his plane on her family's farm. A squadron leader, the handsome Polish man brings her flowers to thank her. On his next visit he brings her a phonograph player and records, and invites her to attend a local dance on Saturday night. Dorothea sits alone there. Later, Roberta goes to visit her grandmother at her nursing home. Grandmother says “Who are you?” The polish airman, Jan, writes letters to Dorothea and she answers them. Author Walters uses the letters to move their love story forward. Dorothea puts them in her suitcase with her stillborn baby’s clothes. London is bombed by the Germans, and Jan shoots down German planes.
Dorothea’s missing husband comes home, but only for one day. Jan returns to Dorothea on Christmas Day 1940 with a wounded arm. He stays overnight and she is happy with him. Roberta, on the other hand, is screamed at by the wife of the man with which she had been having an affair. Nina, one of the girls who works at the farm, delivers a baby boy, but doesn’t want to keep it, as she is ashamed there is no marriage, and feels she doesn’t know how to be a mother at only nineteen years of age.
What happens to the baby? Do Dorothea and Jan marry? Does Roberta find out the true story of her grandmother Dorothea’s life? This is an intriguing story that holds the reader’s interest. Find it in the fiction room under author Walter’s name, at your Mendocino Community Library.