When I picked The Morning Gift out of my TBR jar, I was expecting it to be a children’s title, as the only Eva Ibbotson novels I’ve read in the past have been middle-grade. Although some people have described The Morning Gift as YA I definitely feel as though it falls in the historical fiction genre, as the pacing is much slower than your average YA release.


Not only that, but this story is intensely character-focused. Set during World War II, we follow Ruth Berger as she gets separated from her family and trapped in Vienna, where the Nazis are preparing to march upon the city. Forced to marry a friend from her childhood to get British citizenship so that she is able to rejoin her family, it isn’t long before Ruth manages to get to safely. Her new husband, Professor Quin Somerville, promises that he will use all his power as a famous paleontologist to get their marriage annulled as quickly as possible so that Ruth can marry her childhood sweetheart, Heini. His only conditions? That Ruth must promise to pursue higher education, and that she may never contact him again.

Ruth agrees to these conditions quickly, but due to some mixed messages she ends up enrolling in his class at college. Ruth and Somerville do their best to pretend that they don’t know each other, but their chemistry is unmistakable, not only causing tension between Ruth and some her classmates but also conflicting Ruth herself.

A lot of this novel relies on a lack of communication between the characters, which is one of my least favourite tropes and is probably the only reason that I didn’t give The Morning Gift five stars. If it was only used once I may understand, but with it cropping up a few times throughout the course of the novel it made some parts of the story a little unbelievable. That being said, as it was a historical novel this did annoy me less than novels which rely on this trope and are set in modern times – it’s not like Ruth and Somerville could have just messaged each other on Facebook to get to the bottom of things!

Overall, this story is remarkable. Eva Ibbotson’s magical use of language imbues each of the settings with vibrancy, from the local café to Somerville’s estate, and each member of the large cast of characters comes to life too. Some of the characters are only mentioned once or twice but are still very memorable, as Ibbotson gives each of them unique traits to make them more realistic. Yes, the story does drag at times – descriptions are definitely prioritised over the plot and the pacing – but that makes the payoff at the end of this story all the sweeter, and I found myself enjoying it far more than I normally like historical fiction.

Eva Ibbotson was one of my favourite authors when I was a child, so I’m glad that her writing still appeals to me now, fifteen years later. She has so many novels which I’m yet to read, and I’m looking forward to exploring more of them – and rediscovering my old favourites – in the future.