Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"If, in early summer, I catch the scene of elderflower, I am 19 again, sitting cross-legged on the larder floor, clasping a basin of creamy dessert, refusing to cry." This is the voice of Elise Landau, heroine and narrator of Natasha Solomon's engrossing novel, THE HOUSE AT TYNEFORD. Elise is born and raised in an educated family in Vienna. Her mother Anna is a singer; her father, Julian, a successful novelist. "A man who has experienced great sorrow and has known its end wakes each morning feeling the pleasure of sunrise," Julian tells her. But the sorrow of the Landau family is only beginning. It is 1938 in Vienna, Austria, and they are Jewish. Seeking refuge from Nazi oppression, Anna and Julian are waiting for visas to America - but they can only get two. Elise must travel on her own to England, where as a refugee she will work as a maid on an English estate, Tyneford. Here, where she must learn to be invisible, she will work long hours and find herself living between not two but three worlds - her upbringing in Viennese society, the below-the-stairs life of an English servant, and eventually the milieu of the upper class English Rivers family. Here she will develop a deepening friendship with young Christopher (Kit) Rivers, and experience the complications that such a relationship will create. Meanwhile, as Elise waits anxiously for word that her parents have received their visas and left for New York, England declares war on Germany, and Elise is now an alien enemy in her new country. Natasha Solomons is an exceptional writer. She enables us to enter fully into Elise's experience and to care about what happens to her. Solomons' delicate language, use of visual details, and ability to portray character paint the physical reality within which Elise now lives. Here at Tyneford we meet the housekeeper Mrs. Ellsworth, the locals Will, Poppy and Art, the uppity sisters Diana and Juno Hamilton, and the kindly Mr. Rivers. And of course, we meet Kit Rivers, with whom we may even fall in love. Occasionally, Solomons is even humorous, especially when she describes the attempts of young inexperienced women to understand sex: "It's all about id and ego and superego. I think he puts his id, or is it his ego, into your superego, and then you experience sublimation." But more often, through lyrical prose, we see through Elise's eyes her picturesque environment - such as a "a snub-nosed lookout point rising about the water like a snout of a sea monster." We participate in the magical first day of mackerel season. We learn the subtleties of the hierarchical English social system. We feel Elise's angst in regard to her parents, and Vienna. Knowing what will happen politically adds to the poignancy of the novel. The author's hints about what may happen interpersonally contribute to our curiosity, caring and desire to continue reading. Is Elise's relationship to the Rivers family where she is employed as a maid believable? In the story, yes. In 1938-1940 English life? I'm not sure. Would I have preferred that the author revealed more about the mystery within the viola? Definitely, yes. But this is a minor criticism. THE HOUSE AT TYNEFORD is one of the best novels I've read in recent years. I recommend it highly.