Bonfire Night, Anna Bliss
Bonfire Night, Anna Bliss
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Bonfire Night

Author: Anna Bliss

Narrator: Alix Dunmore

Unabridged: 10 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 12/26/2023


Synopsis

Set before and during World War II, this moving, intricately wrought historical novel brings together a young Irish Catholic photographer and a British Jewish medical student, each discovering the price of love, art, and ambition.

London, 1936: At twenty-one, Kate Grifferty is a press photographer in a Fleet Street agency, an unusual job for a young woman. But Kate is both talented and daring, recklessly going wherever the story might be—including, one October day, to an anti-fascism protest in East London.
There, she meets David Rabatkin, a brilliant Jewish medical student. While his idealistic brother is eager to go to Spain and join the fight for the Republic, David knows where his path lies: at home, fulfilling the expectations of his profession and his family.

Kate is exposed for the first time to the dangers and demands of David’s world, where marrying within the Jewish faith is seen as not only preferable, but key to survival. Kate neither expects nor wants to be any man’s wife, hampered by convention. And though she and David are both
outsiders, as war looms, other differences between them are thrown into sharp relief.

Brighton, 1940: Catastrophe forces Kate to flee London, and the onslaught of war finds her working at her sister’s seaside boardinghouse, while David tends patients at a busy London hospital as the Blitz rages. But Kate’s challenges and disappointments have only deepened her desire to
capture images of life unfurling around her, the beauty and violence, struggles and surprising joys. Andsoon fate and ambition will align, providing her with the chance to make her mark at last …

“A treasure of a novel, beautifully written with the unflinching style and subtle psychological insights of such masters as Ian McEwan and Graham Swift.”—Natalie Jenner, Author of Bloomsbury Girls

Reviews

Bonfire Night: A Gripping and Emotional WW2 Novel of Star Crossed Love was Anna Bliss’s debut novel. I alternately listened to the audiobook that was well narrated by Alex Dunmore and read parts of Bonfire Night on my kindle. Bonfire Night took place in London over the years of 1936 through 1940. I......more

Goodreads review by Karren

Kate Grifferty is a press photographer, an unusual job for a woman, she attends an anti-fascism protest in East London and here she meets David Rabatkin. He’s a Jewish medical student and his younger brother Simon is a fascist and he later travels to Spain the fight for the republic. David knows his......more

Goodreads review by Sheila

Rating: 5 Stars!! Review: Thank you to Kensington Publishing for picking me to win this FREE ARC COPY in a giveaway in their Email Newsletter last month. This was my first time reading a book by Anna so i wasnt sure what to expect but i throughly enjoyed this one especially since Anna did lots of re......more

This story really broke my heart. I knew with it being a WWll novel it wasn’t going to be rainbows and sunshine but the ending crushed me. I’m giving this 4 ⭐️ because it was written so well. The author gave meaningful historical accounts of all that happened in England, really something I had not h......more