Memories [Kindle Edition]

Charlotte Vale-Allen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Seventeen-year-old Hilary Forbes has spent the war years in her parents' London flat, refusing to be evacuated with her younger brother Colin. When she meets their neighbor's nephew, Claude deMartin, Hilary is at once taken with the handsome young man. And one reckless encounter leads to her becoming pregnant. Claude has returned to Switzerland. Hilary's parents are both involved in the war effort, and she's deeply afraid to tell her mother what has happened. But she does tell them and for reasons she could never guess her parents are surprisingly supportive.

Claude returns to London just after the birth of their daughter, Dianne, and does the honorable thing. He and Hilary are married and return to the family home in Switzerland with the baby. But theirs is an arid, loveless marriage and just at the point when Hilary is prepared to concede defeat and return to England, Claude makes an effort to preserve their relationship. A second daughter, Cece, is born.

After Claude's death and Hilary's disfigurement in an automobile accident, she moves with her daughters to Toronto. Too-British and constricted in upbringing, Hilary is unable to speak openly with Dianne who desperately needs the contact. Cece, easy-going and self-contained, chooses to live with her grandmother in Connecticut.

Only time and tragedy draw mother and daughter together in this taut exploration of the importance of communication between parents and children.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 485 KB
• Publisher: Island Nation Press LLC; 3 edition (April 10, 2009)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0026RHVYI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #590,594 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Charlotte Vale-Allen was born in Toronto and lived in England from 1961 to 1964 where she worked as a television actress and singer. She returned to Toronto briefly, performing as a singer until she emigrated to the US in 1966. She sold her first novel Love Life in 1974. Prior to this book's publication she contracted to do a series of paperback originals, with the result that in 1976 three of her books appeared in print. Her autobiography, the acclaimed Daddy's Girl, was actually the first book she wrote but it wasn't until 1980, after she'd gained success as a novelist, that the groundbreaking book was finally published. One of Canada's most successful novelists, with over seven million copies sold of her 39 books, Ms. Allen's work has been published in all English-speaking countries, in Braille, and have been translated into more than 20 languages. The mother of an adult daughter and grandmother of twins, since 1970 she has made her home in Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartfelt!, June 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Memories (Paperback)

This book and Matters of the Heart are both set in England during the Second World War. They couldn't, however, be more different. That is not to say that Matters of the Heart is, in any way, an inferior book--rather, it's just profoundly, completely different. Memories (like Leftover Dreams) deals with a pair of sisters. But that's where the similarities end. Dealing with two generations of women and ably demonstrating how the "sins" of the mother are often visited on the child, the mother in this case is as much a victim of the times as she is of an oddly disaffected husband. I loved this book; it is one of my favorites. It covers a lot of time and a lot of territory (London, Switzerland, Toronto, Connecticut) and conveys a wonderful sense of time and place. Again, Allen avoids the convenient happy ending and goes for something far more honest--another example of a woman finding herself. No one writes about the interior lives of women as honestly or as effectively as this author does. And Memories is a prime example of Allen in peak form. Just a terrific book!