Consumer Critique: Priscilla - The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France

Disclosure: I received complimentary products to facilitate this post. All opinions are my own.

I enjoy reading books set in wartime Europe. It really helps bring that historical perspective alive, making it more real and exposing the intricacies of what was definitely a hard life. Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France fits the bill exactly. The book is nonfiction - an amazing record of the life of Priscilla, as well as the discoveries made by her nephew, Nicholas Shakespeare, the author of this book.

He remembered her as a very different woman than the love letters showed - a glamorous woman who had no qualms about using her beauty. Although he thought she was tortured by the Germans and fought in the Resistance, the truth was a little more complicated than that. The more he dug, the more he discovered, and the more questions that got raised.

We never know what we might do if we were in the face of such a conflict. This book helps tell the story of one woman's choices, and about the legacy they leave.

Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. His novels have been translated into twenty languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and The Dancer Upstairs, which was chosen by the American Libraries Association in 1997 as the year’s best novel, and in 2001 was made into a film of the same name by John Malkovich. Bruce Chatwin, Shakespeare’s biography of the British novelist, was published in 2000 to widespread critical acclaim. Shakespeare is married with two small boys and currently lives in Oxford.