The New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series turns her prodigious talents to this World War I standalone novel, a lyrical drama of love struggling to survive in a damaged, fractured world.
By July 1914, the ties between Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden, friends since girlhood, have become strained—by Thea's passionate embrace of women's suffrage, and by the imminent marriage of Kezia to Thea's brother, Tom, who runs the family farm. When Kezia and Tom wed just a month before war is declared between Britain and Germany, Thea's gift to Kezia is a book on household management—a veiled criticism of the bride's prosaic life to come. Yet when Tom enlists to fight for his country and Thea is drawn reluctantly onto the battlefield, the farm becomes Kezia's responsibility. Each must find a way to endure the ensuing cataclysm and turmoil.
As Tom marches to the front lines, and Kezia battles to keep her ordered life from unraveling, they hide their despair in letters and cards filled with stories woven to bring comfort. Even Tom's fellow soldiers in the trenches enter and find solace in the dream world of Kezia's mouth-watering, albeit imaginary meals. But will well-intended lies and self-deception be of use when they come face to face with the enemy?
Published to coincide with the centennial of the Great War, The Care and Management of Lies paints a poignant picture of love and friendship strained by the pain of separation and the brutal chaos of battle. Ultimately, it raises profound questions about conflict, belief, and love that echo in our own time.
The New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series turns her prodigious talents to this World War I standalone novel, a lyrical drama of love struggling to survive in a damaged, fractured world.
By July 1914, the ties between Kezia Marchant and Thea Brissenden, friends since girlhood, have become strained—by Thea's passionate embrace of women's suffrage, and by the imminent marriage of Kezia to Thea's brother, Tom, who runs the family farm. When Kezia and Tom wed just a month before war is declared between Britain and Germany, Thea's gift to Kezia is a book on household management—a veiled criticism of the bride's prosaic life to come. Yet when Tom enlists to fight for his country and Thea is drawn reluctantly onto the battlefield, the farm becomes Kezia's responsibility. Each must find a way to endure the ensuing cataclysm and turmoil.
As Tom marches to the front lines, and Kezia battles to keep her ordered life from unraveling, they hide their despair in letters and cards filled with stories woven to bring comfort. Even Tom's fellow soldiers in the trenches enter and find solace in the dream world of Kezia's mouth-watering, albeit imaginary meals. But will well-intended lies and self-deception be of use when they come face to face with the enemy?
Published to coincide with the centennial of the Great War, The Care and Management of Lies paints a poignant picture of love and friendship strained by the pain of separation and the brutal chaos of battle. Ultimately, it raises profound questions about conflict, belief, and love that echo in our own time.
Critiques-
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May 12, 2014
The Great War’s impact on the home front and battlefield is portrayed in Winspear’s (the Maisie Dobbs series) winning stand-alone tale about two girlfriends and how their disparate lives entwine when one of them marries the other’s brother. Kezia and Thea couldn’t be more different: Kezia is a vicar’s daughter and Thea (originally called “Dorrit”—from Dorothea—by her Dickens-loving family) grew up on the family farm as a tomboy, competing with her younger brother, Tom. Both girls were scholarship students, but it’s their differences that bind them. Tensions rise when Kezia becomes engaged to Tom. Thea doubts her city-born friend can manage farm life and, as a dig, gives her The Woman’s Book, a publication advising women on a variety of subjects. Excerpts from it, as well as from military manuals of the time, set up chapters told from varying points of view, including that of Edmund Hawkes, a member of the gentry and Tom’s neighbor, who becomes Tom’s commanding officer. Tom enlists and becomes his sergeant’s whipping boy; Kezia thrives as mistress of the farm; and Thea transforms from being a suffragist and pacifist to running an ambulance on the front lines. To keep up Tom’s spirits, Kezia sends letters detailing the imaginary scrumptious meals she’s prepared for him, which he shares with his comrades. While questioning war’s value and showing its terrible effects off the battlefield, Winspear fashions a stunning trajectory for her main characters. Agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency. -
February 15, 2014
I listed this in fiction in LJ 2/1/15 but want to revisit it both to clarify its content and to give it a bigger push. Winspear is known for her fabulous Maisie Dobbs mystery series, whose heroine was marked by her experiences as a nurse in World War I. For this historical, the war isn't the defining past but the looming present, as Kezia Marchant marries friend Thea Brissenden's brother Tom just one month before the fighting breaks out. Thea's involvement in the women's suffrage movement has frayed the bonds between her and Kezia, but the times bring changes for everyone, as Tom marches to battle, Thea is also drawn into the war, and Kezia must manage the family farm alone. With a 100,000-copy first printing and an eight-city tour to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland (OR), Phoenix, Houston, Boston, and Chicago.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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May 15, 2014
Winspear's beloved period mysteries featuring Masie Dobbs (Leaving Everything Most Loved) depict an England haunted by memories of the Great War, so it's no surprise that she uses the conflict as the backdrop to this elegiac historical, her first stand-alone novel. Kezia and Tom Brissenden have been married only a few weeks when Britain declares war on Germany on August 4, 1914. Tom enlists, leaving his town-bred bride in charge of his sprawling Kent farm. His commanding officer is Edmund Hawkes, an aristocratic neighbor whose loneliness is magnified amid the horror of the trenches. Meanwhile, Thea Brissenden, Tom's sister and Kezia's estranged best friend, volunteers as an ambulance driver on the front lines to avoid charges of sedition stemming from her involvement with a pacifist group. Kezia and Tom exchange letters full of love and well-intended deceit concocted to shield the other from anguish, while Edmund and Thea struggle to overcome self-deception and find meaning in a senseless war. VERDICT Though this is not a mystery, Winspear's fans should welcome the keen period detail and thoughtful tone so familiar from the Maisie Dobbs books, while historical fiction readers will be gripped by this sensitive portrayal of ordinary men and women on the home front and battlefield. [See Prepub Alert, 1/26/14; for more novels about World War I, see Mara Bandy's roundup "Battle Scars," LJ 11/1/13.--Ed.]--Annabelle Mortensen, Skokie P.L., IL
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
"Winspear has returned—via a good new, standalone, non-mystery novel called The Care and Management of Lies—to the wartime period that clearly continues to haunt her. In a publishing season crowded with commemorations of the outbreak of World War I...Winspear's books more than hold their own." — Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
"Captivating....It is in Kezia's imagination and kitchen where this tragic story of war, passion, love and friendship comes alive. Winspear illustrates how food-whether it's imaginary or real-can provide the perfect amount of tenderness and compassion when it's needed the most....A suspenseful wartime narrative." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Jacqueline Winspear is one of our best....Beautifully imagined and executed....As with every Winspear novel, there is beautiful writing-and in Kezia and Tom, two characters you won't soon forget." — USA Today
"Fiction at once fresh and timeless, intimate and sweeping that chronicles the challenging friendship between a suffragist and a farmer's wife....A rare stand-alone novel by the author of the beloved Maisie Dobbs series." — O, the Oprah Magazine
"In a stand-alone departure from her popular post-WWI mystery series featuring psychologist Maisie Dobbs, Winspear has created memorable characters in a moving, beautifully paced story of love and duty." — Booklist
"Winspear knows the history of the war that changed the world. In The Care and Management of Lies, she's telling us the story, she's bringing it home. Beautifully, tragically, indelibly." — Bobbi Dumas, NPR Books
"Captivating." — Good Housekeeping
"A winning stand-alone tale....While questioning war's value and showing its terrible effects off the battlefield, Winspear fashions a stunning trajectory for her main characters." — Publishers Weekly
"Without questioning either the cause of the war or the dubious tactics employed...these characters simply get on with it, reaffirming our faith in the possibility of everyday nobility....A sad, beautifully written, contemplative testament." — Kirkus
"s much a story of the home front as of the battlefield, this new stand-alone novel is, above all, a moving tale about the beauty of those very virtues—fortitude, faithfulness, compassion—that the Great War called into question." — Washington Post
"Just as strong [as the Maisie Dobbs series]-enough to guarantee satisfaction for even the most fervent Maisie fan." — Seattle Times
"A moving and remarkable book." — Washington Times
"Without questioning either the cause of the war or the dubious tactics employed...these characters simply get on with it, reaffirming our faith in the possibility of everyday nobility....A sad, beautifully written, contemplative testament." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Winspear's fans should welcome the keen period detail and thoughtful tone so familiar from the Maisie Dobbs books, while historical fiction readers will be gripped by this sensitive portrayal of ordinary men and women on the home front and battlefield." — Library Journal
"An engaging picture of the human spirit in a distant time of war, World War I, from the battlefields to the home front in an English village." — Herman Wouk,...
