The Secret Guests, John Banville
The Secret Guests, John Banville
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Secret Guests
A Novel

Author: John Banville, Benjamin Black

Narrator: Barrie Kreinik

Unabridged: 8 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/14/2020


Synopsis

"When you're done binge-watching The Crown, pick up this multifaceted wartime thriller."
—Kirkus Reviews

As London endures nightly German bombings, Britain’s secret service whisks the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret from England, seeking safety for the young royals on an old estate in Ireland.

Ahead of the German Blitz during World War II, English parents from every social class sent their children to the countryside for safety, displacing more than three million young offspring. In The Secret Guests, the British royal family takes this evacuation a step further, secretly moving the princesses to the estate of the Duke of Edenmore in “neutral” Ireland.

A female English secret agent, Miss Celia Nashe, and a young Irish detective, Garda Strafford, are assigned to watch over “Ellen” and “Mary” at Clonmillis Hall. But the Irish stable hand, the housemaid, the formidable housekeeper, the Duke himself, and other Irish townspeople, some of whom lost family to English gunshots during the War of Independence, go freely about their business in and around the great house. Soon suspicions about the guests’ true identities percolate, a dangerous boredom sets in for the princesses, and, within and without Clonmillis acreage, passions as well as stakes rise.

Benjamin Black, who has good information that the princesses were indeed in Ireland for a time during the Blitz, draws listeners into a novel as fascinating as the nascent career of Miss Nashe, as tender as the homesickness of the sisters, as intriguing as Irish-English relations during WWII, and as suspenseful and ultimately action-packed as war itself.

About John Banville

JOHN BANVILLE, the author of twenty novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He lives in Dublin.

About Benjamin Black

Benjamin Black is the pen name of the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville. Black's books include The Black-Eyed Blonde, Christine Falls, The Silver Swan, among others. He lives in Dublin.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dave on September 09, 2022

RIP, Queen Elizabeth! I think this may be the ONLY book that I have ever read that pertains to her, embodying--in a fictional way--a "theory" that during the Nazi "blitz" on London during WWII that the King and Queen sent their two daughters--one, the future Queen of England, Elizabeth--to Ireland f......more

Goodreads review by Joan on December 19, 2019

I was drawn to this novel by the intriguing premise of an alternative history. While it is a well-known fact that the British Royal Family, including the young Elizabeth and Margaret, remained in London during the blitz, this novel proposes a “what if” scenario. Elizabeth and Margaret are secreted a......more

Goodreads review by Sue on January 19, 2020

In this entertaining work of historical fiction, Benjamin Black (pseudonym of writer John Banville) speculates on a possible event involving the British royal family during the blitz. While history has it that the royal daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, remained in London with their parents during......more

Goodreads review by Javier on January 17, 2020

"The secret guests" was such a let down for me. It's described as an "enthralling historical mystery" and the only thruth in that is that is set in an historical moment. Period. No mystery. No enthralling at all. With such an interesting premise I was expecting so much more. The "secrets guests" of......more

Goodreads review by Foz ☀️ on February 08, 2025

- رواية مبنية على عنصر خيالي أو عنصر "ماذا لو"، أي أحداث الرواية لم تحدث في الواقع، وهو في الحرب العالمية الثانية من المعروف بأن العائلة البريطانية تحت حكم "الملك جورج" ظلوا في بريطانيا والأميرتان "اليزابيث ومارجريت" كانتا صغيرتان عند اندلاع الحرب، الرواية أتت بشكل مُغاير وهو إرسال الطفلتان إلى إيرل......more