The Golden Hour

What a beautiful book.  Written by Beatriz Williams.  Her prose is wonderfully descriptive and her imagery is realistic. 

This is the historical fiction story of the war years of World War II as a backdrop.  We do not come directly in contact with the war or the Holocaust in this novel, but they are there in the background.  Mentioned in passing and referred to but not directly confronted in this story.

This is a novel as seen through the eyes of Lenora "Lulu" Randolph, who later becomes Mrs. Thorpe, when she marries Benedict Thorpe.  It is also the story of another Mrs. Thorpe, the former Elfriede von Kleist, who 40 years earlier marries another ginger haired man named Wilfred Thorpe.  Alternating between the lives of these two women we hear the stories of history that surrounds their relationships with these men.

Hinting a mystery as the book opens, Lulu Randolph is escaping her past by living in the Bahamas during the war.  She has gotten herself a contract with a New York newspaper to write a society column about the Governor of the Bahamas and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.  Her news position as a reporter acknowledges the American obsession with England and their royalty,  even those who have been sent to the outpost of Nassau in disgrace.  The Duchess, Wallis Simpson, wants to present a positive image to the press and engages our Lulu to write the society news column.  Mixing fiction with fact, we learn about the real life at the Government House in Nassau and about the Duke's relationship with people like, Harry Oakes and his son-in-law, Alfred de Marigny.  A mystery that has never been solved is presented,  Oakes is murdered in his bed.
Also the Burma Road riots are presented in the book to show the issues of race that were happening at this point in history.

At one point Wallis Simpson, the divorcee who became the Duke of Windsor's wife, who took away his chance being the King of England, talks to Lulu about marriage, comparing it to skiing, saying, "Have you ever been skiing?..It's exciting really.  You stare down that slope and you think what a thrilling ride it's going to be. In your head, you may map out exactly where you're going to turn, how fast, how damn magnificent you are going to look as you swish your way downward.  Then glorious finish to start all over again.....That's the general idea. Or nobody would try.  So you push off, all dressed up in your fine new skiing clothes, and at first it all goes exactly how you expect, just exhilarating fun, everybody admiring how your've mastered the hill.  Until you find a patch of ice, maybe, or the slope turns steep, or you take a wrong turn, and all at once you've lost control. ...The slope becomes your master instead of the other way around.   You see the end approaching and there's nothing you can do to avoid it anymore.  You've started the whole thing in motion, and you've got to see it through, no matter how bad the crash at the bottom."

Going back further is the story of Elfriede, who meets her ginger hair prince charming in Switzerland, in a hospital, while they are recovering from illnesses.  He from pneumonia and Elfriede from what is now known as postpartum depression.  She goes back to her husband and young son and we learn about her life leading up to the present as the plot unfolds.  Building suspense, Williams develops both story lines bringing them closer in proximity as we come to the end.
In the end this is a story of two strong but flawed women, who find the strength to help the men they love in a war torn world.