Marie is brought up as a country girl on the west coast of France, but world events catch up with her and life has more in store for her than her family ever expected. While she was a teenager working in a bar during the Second World War, the Resistance movement makes use of her local knowledge to help Jewish youngsters to escape. Moving to Paris after the war, she is caught up in the aftermath of the Vel d’Hiv atrocity and sent on an investigation by a local Communist newspaper into the heart of Siberia. Back in Paris in the late 1950s, she finds herself embroiled in the French/Algerian crisis and travels to North Africa.  

Here is the story of a young woman who is passionately interested in justice, not easily intimidated by political rhetoric of any sort, but most of all is touched by the personal relationships she forms with the people she is sent to investigate and those she meets on her travels. She is constantly discovering herself and the complexities of the world around her and, in all three countries, she is fascinated by the members of the Jewish community she meets, as well as those with conflicting political beliefs.

Descriptions of the countryside around Les Landes, central Siberia and Algeria will draw you into the lives of the people who lived there in the 1940s and 50s. It will make you want to identify with a young woman, who becomes increasingly self-possessed and independent, despite the tragedies she endures.

About the author

Anne-Louise Mathie is passionate about reading and writing and exploring ideas and beliefs of all kinds. She has worked as a teacher, housewife and chaplain in a variety of multi-faith communities in different parts of the world. She now lives in Bristol, England with her husband and has four children and eight grandchildren.