Bonjour Sophie is perhaps best described as a triumph over adversity. Consisting of two parts, we first meet Sophie whilst she's living in Sussex with the creepy Reverend and his wife Alice who took her French refugee mother, Camille, in when she fled war torn Paris. Camille died when Sophie was only seven. And from then on, Sophie lived a life of boredom and austerity. It is 1959 and Sophie has a restless spirit and a rebellious one. She longs for autonomy. Following a love affair gone wrong, she escapes Sussex and returns to her mother's homeland to search for information about her birth parents.

In her time in Paris Sophie relishes her new experiences and finds herself. Still beset by longing for her lover, she also realises that a domestic life wasn't for her. She finds courage and answers, and learns that history and war blur lines of morality.

Beautifully written, evocative and a story to savour in all its complexity.

The start of this book was quite shocking - how did life go on like this in 1959, it seemed positively Victorian.
As it went on, I loved the premise of the two young women with very different lives, envying each other; which one has less freedom?
In the later parts of the book we see that things are rarely black and white, especially during wartime.
I enjoyed this book very much.

Interesting story set in post war England and then moving to Paris. I found it to be an enjoyable and informative tale which, although it took a while to get going, moved towards a satisfactory conclusion. Different from my usual reads but would definitely recommend it.

A lovely lovely book. I really enjoyed Sophie’s story and how she took control of her life. A great cast of characters and really well written. Recommended.

Can she escape the darkness of her past in the City of Light?

It's 1959 and time for eighteen-year-old Sophie's real life to start. Her existence in the village of Poynsdean, Sussex, with her austere foster-father, the Reverend Osbert Knox, and his frustrated wife Alice, is stultifying. She finds diversion and excitement in a love affair, but soon realizes that if she wants to live life on a bigger canvas she must take matters into her own hands. 

She dreams of escape to Paris, the wartime home her French mother fled before her birth. Getting there will take spirit and ingenuity, but it will be her chance to discover more about her family background, and, perhaps, to find a place where she can finally belong.

When Sophie eventually arrives in the Paris arising from the ashes of the war, it's both everything she imagined, and not at all what she expected...

Most readers will know I have a fascination for the period directly after WWI, but recently I’ve been looking at books and films that have explored the aftermath of WW2. Originally I watched a film called The Aftermath starring the brilliant Jason Clarke and Alexander Skaarsgaard that followed a British colonel posted out to Nuremberg after the war ends. His job is to help rebuild and I remember being shocked that people were living in homes where their outer walls were missing, almost like looking into a doll’s house. Since then I’ve read novels set in the occupied countries like Poland and France and gaining other viewpoints makes you remember that the majority of people are caught up in a war they don’t want to fight, are tormented with memories of things they’ve done to survive and are still waiting for the return of those they love. I think we imagine that once the war was over, everything went back to normal, but that was far from the truth. Prisoners of war were kept, by us, for several years after the war ended, rationing only ended in 1954 and we were still rebuilding London till the mid 1970’s. It’s in this aftermath that we meet our heroine Sophie, just finishing boarding school in England with her friend Hettie. Sophie has a complicated past and her school years have been a temporary period of fun and friendship. Now she must return to the home and parish of clergyman Osbert Knox, an English village where her French mother ended up in dire straits during the war. Camille was pregnant and had fled Paris during the occupation, leaving behind Sophie’s father who was fighting in the Resistance. Lucky for the Knoxes, Camille had great housekeeping skills and she repaid their kindness in cooking, cleaning and implementing a household system that enabled them to concentrate on their parishioners. Sadly, Camille died and now the Knoxes are expecting Sophie to return from school and pick up where her mother left off, learning to keep house and support the couple. Sophie needs to earn back her keep and education, only then will Osbert return her mother’s precious savings book. This was money that Camille managed to save from her meagre allowance, knowing that Sophie would need something to restart her life with. Sophie dreams of returning to Paris, the home of her parents, but there’s only problem. She is sure that money is being taken from her mother’s savings. So she makes a decision to bring her escape forward, to find the savings book and flee with whatever is left to France and look for her father.

Sophie is a resilient girl, intelligent and able to read people. She doesn’t trust Osbert, but is still horrified to find that he expects her thanks to extend to much more than cooking and cleaning. Now she must escape and sooner rather than later. Sophie wants to build an independent life for herself, full of new experiences. She isn’t afraid about change, she’s quite matter of fact about those experiences she wants to try. She has a friendship with Johnny from the nearby farm and plans to lose her virginity with him, rationalising that it’s something she wants to get out of the way. This ability to single out what she wants and succeed in getting it will stand her in good stead once she gets to Paris. She has a deep yearning to connect with her history, even if her father hasn’t survived, she wants to know what he did during the war. Was he the hero that her mother painted him to be? Sophie knows that the scars of war run deep, that her father might have done terrible things to survive. The author writes about the moral compromises people make in war without judgement, allowing the reader to make their own decisions, but also reinforcing the point that no one knows what they’re capable of until they’re under duress. Finding her father isn’t easy though. She takes work in an art gallery and uses her wage to hire a private investigator. She finds out about the paintings looted from Jewish families during the occupation, removed by the Germans as the owners were transferred to concentration camps. However there were French collectors and gallery owners who collaborated in these deals, using a terrible atrocity as a business opportunity. She also finds that there are so many people looking for someone: husbands who never returned from the battlefield but are not amongst the dead; resistance fighters executed and thrown in a shallow grave; women killed for their collaboration with German soldiers during the war. There are vendettas and grudges still playing out and Sophie is warned that she might not like what she finds. Some secrets should remain buried. The buildings in Paris echo the the trauma still felt by the people, from a distance they look okay but close up it’s clear that there’s been no maintenance. The paintwork is peeling and the stone is damaged, but there is still beauty.

I really enjoyed the friendship between Sophie and Hettie, who has returned home to constraints of her own. She is trapped in within the expectations of her parents and her class. Hattie is expected to be a ‘deb’ and be presented for the London season. If she shines she might attract the right sort of husband. Her only route is marriage and children, no independence or career path. She has to be engaging but not appear too clever and put suitors off. Neither girl has any type of sex education, is not allowed her own bank account or make decisions about her own fertility. It’s scary to me that a lot of these restrictions lasted into my mother’s lifetime! Thankfully Hettie has a belated rebellion. I loved that the girl’s friendship lasts a lifetime and they give each other support and strength. This feel like a transitional period in time, where the world is trying to recover from war and it was a huge realisation to me that it took this long. I remembered reading that it was Ed Balls who, as chancellor, paid the final debts from WW2 and being so shocked. It takes people a lot longer to heal and return to themselves. My own father in law took many years after WW2 moving from the Siberian forest through the Middle East and North Africa and into Europe. He eventually settled in London, but his wartime experience still haunted him when he lived with us in the 2000s. I think Elizabeth Buchan has a way of writing about how we come to terms with generational trauma like this. Here she has mixed a thoughtful and complex historical period with a coming of age story. Just as Sophie is becoming a woman, the country she escapes to is also in the midst of a change. It is by finding out about WW2 and the terrible stories of living in Paris under occupation that she starts to understand her parent’s story and the courageous choices they made. Despite the pain and loss, Sophie’s experiences have a joy about them as she attempts to build herself a life with resilience and happiness.

Bonjour Sophie is a coming-of-age story set in post-war England and Paris. Sophie leaves school at eighteen and becomes an unpaid servant to her foster parents at a vicarage in a Sussex village. Her mother had fled France in the war at her husband's behest to safeguard her pregnancy. She had died in Sussex, having provided for her daughter's education, but Sophie's foster father had control of her money. He didn't have Sophie's best interests at heart. She lives life despite her foster parents but yearns to escape and discover her heritage. Sophie experiences life in vivid colour and gradually appreciates where she came from, who she is, and what she can be. The pacing mirrors the pace of Sophie's life, accelerating as she goes to Paris. I like the evocative setting of time and place, the characterisation, and the contrast between life in Sussex and life in Paris.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

A wonderful book - I enjoyed every moment. I loved the main character (who would be the same age as my mother) and willed her along all the steps of her journey to discover her deceased parents and, most importantly, to discover herself in a new world where women can be independent. A must read!

Sophie's parents were both resistance fighters in Paris but when her mother becomes pregnant her father arranges for his wife to leave France. Arriving in England Camille is taken in by the Reverend Knox and his wife, who continue to care for Sophie after her mother's death. In 1959 when Sophie is 18 and leaving school she determines to find out about her father who was killed during the war.

An enthralling story of growing up and finding one's roots, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this book very much,although it took me a while to get into it as it’s quite slow paced.Set in 1960,it tells the story of Sophie Morel,whose mother brought her from France to a small village in England during the war.After her mother died,she was brought up in the vicarage by severe and unloving foster parents but she dreams of finding her father in France once she is old enough to travel there.However,her foster parents have other ideas for her and try to make sure she doesn’t leave until she is 21 as they use her as an unpaid housekeeper.She has an ill fated love affair with a local farmer, and several run-ins with her vile foster father, but eventually manages to get to Paris.
The second half of the book really captures how Paris must have been in the early 60s ,when Sophie’s life changes completely from the stultifying boredom of life in the vicarage to the excitement of working and living in the French capital.She tries to find out what happened to her father while making a new life for herself in France.I was very satisfied with the way the story turned out.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

Fifteen years might seem a long time after the end of the Second World War but in fact its impact lingers on, as the author deftly explores in Bonjour, Sophie. For some, like Sophie’s foster mother Alice, war had been so much a battle for survival that even the slim pickings of life offered afterwards are, if not enough, then better than nothing. For others, there are physical scars but also mental scars from the things they saw and the things they were forced to do in order to survive.

Along with her dream of a more fulfilling and independent life, Sophie harbours a deep need to know about her father, a man she never met, including how he died. Was he the hero of the French Resistance she has always believed him to be?

Having made it to Paris, her first job involves contact with people who also looking for someone but for quite different reasons. She describes them to her friend Hettie as ‘drenched in yearning’. Her own search for answers involves some subterfuge, as well as ignoring the warnings that she may not like what she finds out. ‘War triggers vendettas. Paris was, and is, not exempt. Asking questions exposes secrets, and some are best left hidden.’ A brief glimpse of a more luxurious lifestyle proves tempting but, she realises, would bring the sort of obligations and constraints she has set her face against.

Paris offers Sophie myriad new experiences which help to banish, albeit not completely, memories of the disappointments, losses and unpleasant experiences of her life in Sussex. Yet even here, the buildings carry the marks of conflict. ‘The war was over. The war was not over. Peeling paint. Damaged stonework.’

Sophie makes a spirited and engaging heroine. She’s intelligent, witty and once she has decided on a course of action she is resolute – and resourceful – in following it through. I also liked the storyline involving Sophie’s friend and confidante, Hettie, who belatedly embarks on her own journey from the constraints of parental and societal expectations.

Bonjour, Sophie is an engaging, nuanced coming-of-age story that captures a world on the cusp of social change and I very much enjoyed spending time with Sophie on her journey.

Sophie, a headstrong product of the emerging youth culture of the early 1960s refuses to be typecast into a woman’s role of housewife and mother. Seeking excitement, adventure and fulfilment she escapes the confines of her society and heads for Paris. Europe is still emerging from the battle scars of WW2 and a world she could only dream of from stories told by her mother now becomes an alternative reality for this village girl. A series of incidents and events catalogues the adventures of a lifetime incorporating the memories and experiences of her family’s past. Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Bonjour, Sophie by Elizabeth Buchan

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Historical fiction

Tags: World War Two, 1950s, Paris, attempted rape, family exploration/discovery, romance, orphan, forbidden romance, self discovery, coming of age

It's 1959, and Sophie is an orphan who, once she completes school, returns to the parsonage where she and her mother were taken on when they fled France. Her mother died when Sophie was 7, and the vicar and his wife made themselves responsible for her.

Sophie hates is there, and wants to find out about her father, whom her mother told her was a hero who died at the end of World War Two.

Sophie's friendship with Hettie is one of the bright spots in her life.

The social pressure is very felt in this book, and Elizabeth Buchan has done a good job of evoking it. The claustrophobia of village life, where everyone knows what you’ve been up to is well portrayed.

I found sections of the book predictable, which took away some of the enjoyment.

Whilst I found this book evocative for the situations, I wasn't as drawn into as I have been by other books by Elizabeth Buchan.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley, Atlantic books and Corvus, and to Elizabeth Buchan.

The novel starts in 1959 in Sussex as Sophie struggles living with her foster parents. She longs to break away and perhaps go and see Paris (as her parents - both deceased) were French. But there are many obstacles in the way. She nearly doesn't go as she falls for a boy. The quest to go to Paris is really to learn about who her father was as she never met him.

The first part of Bonjour Sophie is like something out of Dickens, although it is set in the 1950s. The second part is more uplifting as she attempts to find her own way in life and also to discover more about her father.

The settings are atmospheric and there are some wonderful characters, both good and bad. This book is quite different to anything I have read for a long time and is highly recommended.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

4 stars ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Atlantic Books and Corvus for an e-arc for an honest review. This is a story about a girl called Sophie who wants to relive the stories that her mother told her when she was a child but she dreams of living in Paris. This is a lovely story and I really enjoyed it so much.

having very much enjoyed The Museum of Broken Promises I was really looking forward to this one. It didn't disappoint. Gentle and slow moving story , nevertheless it hooks you in and you want to know more. A great holiday read

A coming of age novel that is full of warmth and determination, set in the 1960’s England.
Sophie lives with her foster parents, the Reverend Osbert Knox and Alice, his depressed, put upon, resentful wife. Sophie’s late mother, Camille escaped from Paris during World War Two, and gave birth to Sophie in England , her husband stayed behind to fight with the Resistance.
Sophie heard many stories about her parents and their war efforts in Paris and relatives in Poitiers, and that sounds more exciting than the life of duty and service that is expected of her as payment for being fostered.
Her best friend, Hattie, is also trapped , this was the era where girls are not expected to be too brainy, as that might scare of any potential suitors, and Hattie is being launched into the ‘ season’ in order to attract a suitable husband, marry and produce children, no career path here. Sex education was not discussed at school or at home, women were not allowed their own bank accounts, and from personal experience, women had to get the husband to give his consent for a hysterectomy, as it affected his marital rights!!
Sophie gets to Paris, and tries to sort out the mystery surrounding the death of her father. Hattie also has many trials and tribulations to face, in a time when women had very little recourse to the law.
This is a truly inspiring read about female friendships, strength and fortitude. Sophie is a wonderfully rounded character, headstrong and determined, she makes her own way in life, she is resourceful and curious. The stories about life in war time Paris are so full of emotion, and help her to understand about her parents and their bravery and sacrifice. Sophie’s exploits in Paris are joyful and full of the happiness she wants from life. I really loved this book, a five star read.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers,Corvus and Atlantic books, for my advanced digital copy, freely given in exchange for my honest review. I will leave a copy to Goodreads and Amazon UK upon publication.

I am a great fan of Elizabeth Buchan and have enjoyed her acerbic take on life and her ability to cut through sentiment and reach the heart of a character or issue.

I do not know if it is my age but I am beginning to feel a sense of 'novel bloat'. Rather in the way films now seem so much longer. The same seems to be happening to novels.

This is a wonderful take on the gap betwen dreams and reality, imagination and the day to day.

I loved Sophie and Hetty and their travails. At times it was almost 'The Pursuit of Love'..But sometimes I felt things were saggin a little.

But, still an excellent read and very enjoyable.

Sophie grew up in England with uncaring foster parents. Her mother died when she was young, her resistance -fighter father died in Paris in WW2. she goes to Paris to try to trace her parents families. A well written book ,involving the art world following, and during WW2.

1959 and Sophie has just finished school and is back home in a sleepy Sussex village with her foster parents, the local vicar and is wife.
She hates it and starts working on the local farm and embarks on a relationship with the farmers son.
Sadly that doesn't work out and she escapes to France to search for information on her father and mother.
Can she find answers and maybe love?