Kissing Kin [Hardcover]

Elswyth Thane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1978

Like the other Williamsburg novels in the series-this is the 5th-there is a basic formula of family activities followed by main characters falling in love amid the back drop of war. While this plot device may get old the fact that Elswyth Thane is a very good writer saves the day. Her novels are well researched and her characters are very believeable. Besides Williamsburg, the settings of this novel include London, France and Germany during the First World War. There is a surprising ending to this novel with a well crafted plot that keeps the reader thorougly involved in the story.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: Hawthorne (1978)
• ASIN: B000MQJB7U
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,219,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Distant relations, November 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Kissing Kin (Williamsburg Novels) (Hardcover)

I discovered this book largely because the staircase in the local public library deposits browsers in the T section of fiction, and it appealed to me as a dark, yet not hopelessly grim, novel of WWI. As a Williamsburg novel, _Kissing Kin_ provides a good deal of exposition needed to get from _The Light Heart_ to _This Was Tomorrow_, but it is certainly the darkest of the series, and the happy endings seem a tad contrived. Our heroine, Camilla, epitomizes the "lost generation," as her idealistic efforts to help with WWI ultimately leave her rootless and drifting until the darkening cloud of Nazi Germany revives her sense of purpose.

5.0 out of 5 stars Kissing Kin, July 16, 2010

By 

Alice H Everitt (PINELLAS PARK, FLORIDA, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

I ordered this book without realizing I already had it. That's okay. My fault. It did com in a very timely manner and was very nice. If I keep this up, I will have two complete collections of Elswyth Thane's Williamsburg Series. Good Summer reading.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A historical novel with this review being taken from the "Acknowledgements" of the author..., January 5, 2009

By 

CAT "CAT" - See all my reviews

"The human memory is a tricky and unreliable thing, and the research for the background of this book, which lies within the experience of a great many people today, has therefore been as carefully done as for remote historical times. The English illustrated periodicals are the last word in accuracy and vivid coverage on the 1914-1918 war, and on current opinion during the growth of Nazism. I am grateful to Air Marshal Sir William Welsh, Air-Commodore Peregrine Fellowes and Mr. Francis Vivian Drage, who flew with the RAF during the first World War, for helpful comment and additional information on the pages concerned with early combat flying, which was so different from the work done by the Flying Fortresses and Spitfires in the recent past.

The summers in England which were an unalterable part of my life from 1928 to 1939 supply me with a certain personal viewpoint, but the opinions expressed by Johnny Malone and Bracken Murray in the book are drawn from the published record of foreign correspondents and statemen in Europe during those years. No balanced estimate of the twenty-five years between the wars can be complete without a thoughtful study of Leopold Schwartzchild's "World In Trance" - a book which should be compulsory reading for every adult in the Western World.

Miss Barbara Hayes of the British Information Service very kindly made it possible for me to learn more about St. Dunstan's than is readily available in this country. Dr. Joseph Fobes gave patient and comprehensible answers to my queries about surgical details. And as always, Mrs. F. G. King and the staff of the New York Society Library have been endlessly helpful to me."

I felt these acknowledgements gave great insight into the book, its purpose and accuracy...remembering also that they were written in 1948 shortly after WWII.