Transgression: A Sweeping World War Two Tale of Forbidden Love and Dark Secrets in France - Softcover

Nichol, James W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061782319 ISBN 13: 9780061782312

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2009

Synopsis

A tale of love and war, Transgression by James W. Nichol is part romance, part mystery, and part riveting historical novel set during World War Two in Europe and in North America in the years directly following the terrible conflict. Nichol—winner of the Arthur Ellis Award and shortlisted for the UK’s Gold Dagger Award for his debut novel Midnight Cab—tells the haunting story of a young French woman undone by love during the Nazi occupation of her country and branded a “horizontal collaborator” after its liberation. Beautifully written and unforgettable, Transgression is a novel about secrets and survival and the high price that must be paid for passion.

About this title

About the Author

James W. Nichol is the author of Midnight Cab, which was short-listed for the UK's prestigious Gold Dagger Award and which won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. He lives in Stratford, Ontario.

From the Back Cover

How can love survive a brutal time?

In 1946 in North America, a child makes a grisly find in a deserted field—a discovery that opens a shuttered window on a secret dating back to the beginning of the turbulent decade.

In 1941 in occupied France, Adele Georges's fruitless attempts to learn the whereabouts of her father, captured by the Nazis, lead her to a lonely young German soldier far from home. A spark between them becomes a fire—and a dangerous love affair blooms across enemy lines, dooming Adele to a grim postwar existence as a despised outcast, one of the infamous "horizontal collaborators." Ostracized, tortured, tormented, she chooses a desperate escape, accompanying a war-damaged yet optimistic Allied soldier across an ocean to a new land. But there is no refuge from the past, as Adele's broken heart and shameful secret drive her deeper into despair...and toward a shocking outcome.

Part mystery and part love story—an unforgettable and beautifully written novel of secrets, passions, and consequences—Transgression is an exceptional work of power and strange beauty.

Reviews

Nichol (Midnight Cab) easily avoids the sophomore slump with this story of love and betrayal amid the turmoil of WWII. In Nazi-occupied Rouen, France, in 1941, 16-year-old Adele Georges falls in love with a young German soldier named Manfred Halder. They carry out a secret affair while Adele's family falls apart. In a second plot line set in a small Canadian town in 1946, the discovery of a severed finger embroils the brusque police chief, Jack Cullen, in a mystery he must solve to avoid being forced into early retirement and to distract him from his son's wartime death. Back in France, Adele and Manfred are abruptly separated, and in Adele's quest to find him, she meets Canadian soldier Alex Wells, who marries her and brings her home to Canada, where tension builds as the couple adjusts to domestic life in Jack's town. In a not wholly unexpected twist, the two plots meet and the solution to Jack's investigation becomes clear. While the final chapters feel hasty, the vivid prose, harrowing plot and the defiant Adele will keep readers invested in this love story–cum–murder mystery until the very last page. (Oct.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061782319
• ISBN 13: 9780061782312
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352