I was given Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans as one of my Mother's Day gifts, and as I have already finished it, you may guess that I found it a good read.
Lissa Evans has created characters that are both believable and unusual and the storyline twists and turns in unexpected ways right up to the last page. The story centres on ten year old Noel, who was orphaned before the start of the war, and, having no other family, is sent to live with his godmother Mattie in Hampstead Heath.
Mattie is an academic single woman who holds a doctorate, and Noel is a precocious child who has difficulty making friends of his own age, but the two bond together happily until Mattie's mind begins to unravel when dementia takes hold. Her decline is captured with gentle humour, but also with real sensitivity, and Noel has to cope with doing more and more for himself as the months go by. Maddie is convinced there will not be a war, or any bombs falling, so she refuses to allow Noel to be evacuated and tells the authorities that she will provide his education at home.
During the course of the novel we see the impact of the war on on individual lives as people struggle with rationing, call-up, and the real horror of the blitz. Lissa Evans clearly knows a great deal about the social history of people living in London at this time, but the writing never drifts into a history lesson as the facts emerge naturally as part of the story.
I enjoyed reading the story from the different character viewpoints and seeing how people came to try and beat various war-time systems as they were all just trying to survive. This is a period of time that we all know something about, but this book tells it from different angles and allows us to see the blurred lines between right and wrong and good and bad.
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