The London Restoration by Rachel McMillan ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

Determined to save their marriage and the city they love, two people divided by World War II’s secrets rebuild their lives, their love, and their world.

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August 2020; Thomas Nelson; 978-0785235026
audio, ebook, print (336 pages); WWII romance

"The true beauty is in resilience.  We'll see the cracks in our facades, but we will know what went in to their creation.  London will be more beautiful because it was torn apart but didn't stay so." (p 93)

London 1945.  The war is over and the city has started restoring the bombed out churches.  At the same time, the couples who were separated during the war are working to restore their relationships.  This novel is a beautiful book about the churches in London - both the history and the damage from the German bombs.  We see what is being done to restore these beautiful old churches.  Many of the churches were severely damaged while the beautiful St. Paul's Cathedral only sustained minor damage.

The churches aren't the only things that need to be restored.  Many couples who had been separated from each other through the war needed to work to restore their relationships because they aren't the same people that they were before the war.  Diana and Brent were married right before he went to war.  He was a professor of theology at King's College and she was working on her master's thesis on churches.  After the war, he returns home wounded but she isn't able to return for 5 weeks.  When she comes back, she has to keep secrets from him on where she'd been and her role during the war as a code breaker.  The secrets between them keep them unable to restore their relationship.  Even as he visits churches with her to look at the damage he doesn't totally trust her anymore.  Will they be able to get past the secrets between them and be happy together or will the secrets keep them apart?

The London Restoration started very slowly but it needed to so that the reader could get all of the background on Diana and Brent as well as their roles during the war.  Once they get involved with M16 to help find a Russian agent, the story speeds up and their love for each other starts to open their hearts again.  This novel has love and forgiveness, mystery and suspense, and a lot of information about London churches - how they used to look before the war, how the war destroyed them, and how they will look in the future after they are restored.  It's historical fiction perfectly mixed with a beautiful love story.

 

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Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina with her husband of over 50 years.  She grew up in Michigan but now calls North Carolina home. Since her travel plans had to be canceled for this year, she is starting to make plans for travel in 2021. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and historical fiction. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter.

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