It's about love, loss, and what makes a family in World War II-era England. 'This beautiful novel will make you hug your own family a little closer. This is a powerful story that proves how love itself requires courage.'-Delia Owens, New York Times bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing The war and weather-etched faces and life-long relationships of the villagers show us that real family has little to do with worn down definitions. Through every scene, we see the tattered socks, the doll faces, the honey-smells of baby skin, but mostly we feel the strength and endurance of heart-crushing love. 'Vividly portrayed.Liardet reminds us that mother-daughter love can arise from thrown-together hearts during the cruelest rubble of war. As a testament to parental love and its relationship to the heartbreaking, healing, almost ungraspable passage of time, We Must Be Brave is a great success: richly observed, lovingly drawn, and determinedly clear-eyed to the last.' - Guardian (UK)

'Be prepared to surrender-to Liardet's gorgeous prose, her haunting storyline, and the question that will lodge in your heart long after you've finished: What would I have done? For anyone who has ever loved a child, this stirring debut will work its way indelibly into the folds of your memory, and of your heart.'-Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones Beyond distance, beyond time, beyond life itself. Spanning the sweep of the twentieth century, We Must Be Brave explores the fierce love that we feel for our children and the power of that love to endure. But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never theirs to keep. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone.Įllen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home, the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband Selwyn had dreamed for themselves. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly married Ellen Parr finds a girl asleep, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. As German bombs fall on Southampton, England during World War II, the city's residents flee to the surrounding villages. The child who changed everything.ĭecember 1940. Beyond distance, beyond time, beyond life itself.Ī woman. Spanning World War II and the sweep of the twentieth century, We Must Be Brave explores the fierce love that we feel for our children and the power of that love to endure.

Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing

Description THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERĪ powerful story that proves how love itself requires courage.

Frances liardet author