“With a shocking true story at it’s core, The Silent Hours is an unforgettable portrayal of love and loss”
These are words taken from the back cover of this book, the words that enticed me to pick up a copy in Easons bookshop and buy it.
I have always been drawn to books that tell the stories of the tragedy that befell one too many during the Second World War. I think these stories remind me of the fact that it wasn’t that long ago and it’s not beyond the possibility that we could find ourselves back there again.
The Silent Hours is written by Cesca Major and published by Corvus in 2015. It is a very personal story following the lives of the five main characters Adeline, Isabelle, Paul, Sebastian and a nine-year-old boy Tristan.
Cesca Major sets out to ultimately remind us of an horrific and violent, relatively unknown piece of history, that was inflicted on a small village in rural France, Oradour-sur-Glane on 10th June 1944. While the characters are mainly fictional, there is no denying the horror of the actual true event.
One young character, Tristan, reminds me of the innocence of Bruno in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (Pub by David Fickling Books 2006). Any story told through the eyes of youth has an innocent quality that really moves us and I guess makes us see how they believe that us grown ups are there to always protect & never harm……..
Oh I really want to read this now !!