Secrets of a Charmed Life

by Susan Meissner
Carver County Library paperback 386 pages
genre: Christian historical fiction

I am so glad we have book club tonight! I liked, but wasn't head-over-heels in love with this one. I wonder what Jodi thought of it. It takes place during WWII, primarily in London, but also in the countryside where the children are evacuated. The story opens with a history student scoring an interview with a secret story of what happened during the evacuation of the children during WWII.

page 11 - "If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree," - Michael Crichton. I'm not a huge fan of history, but I recognize the importance of it. I loved this quote from Crichton.

page 89 - the description of Charlotte made me think, "I want to be like this!" ". . . her skin was wrinkled but in a nice way, as if she had one day started smiling and then had never stopped." This really resonated for me. Throughout the story, what Charlotte says and does (and how she says and does it) made me think about the kind of person I am and who I want to be.

page 109 - When Charlotte invited them to pray at their first meal together. "It had been a long time since Emmy and Julia had been in the same room with someone who spoke to God out of reverence." This makes me think of the importance of being true to God - we never know when we are setting an example.

page 142 - The foreshadowing is more like foreshouting. "She would look back on that moonlit night and wonder and wonder and wonder what she would have done had she considered that the owl that awakened Julia was divinely sent so that she wouldn't leave Thistle House that night."

page 185 - "But on that Sunday morning when fires still burned and the dead were still being carried out and the extent of the destruction still could not be fathomed, a missing seven-year-old was just another calamity in a collection of calamities the likes of which no one had seen before." So much of our personal tragedies are wrapped within a framework of what else is happening.

page 216 - "Grief sapped her of mental clarity and made her feel weak. She could not be a companion to it now. All that mattered was finding Julia." So true that grief can sap you. This also resonated for me.

page 252 - "Thistle House is for people who love and care for one another. We respect one another in this house, Emmeline. We carry one another's burdens. We weep for one another and we laugh with one another. We hold one another by the hand when the lights go out and when the way seems hopeless. We work together and we share the table together and we pray together. No matter how old we are or what we are called." Love this! Sounds like a home motto you could hang on your wall!

page 268 - Talk about collapsing a story line! "The next two years were spent in a mindless routine . . . " Well. That helps to grow her up to legal age!

page 291 - Well. I had to read this page twice. I didn't think she would go there and do that . . . knowing what had happened to her mother. And where did this come from? "But life is lived at the moment you are living it, she thought. No one but God in heaven has the benefit of seeing beyond today." And is that supposed to be an absolution of her mistakes? I may have to re-read this page a third or fourth time . . .

page 331 - The scene where Julia and Frannie are in the boat and Frannie is seeking reassurance from the mute Julia. Julia's nods and the word "maybe" were significant. "The girl who knew what war was like was telling her not to give up hope." Hope is powerful!

page 359 - ". . . if I know anything about time, it is that it stretches to walk with you when you grieve. The rest of the world may zoom past at breakneck speed, but when you are learning to live with loss, time slows to the pace of your breathing."

page 381 - I love Colin, the money, and the way things worked out for Thistle House!

page 384 - the end of the interview. This didn't really work for me. We don't get to know Kendra well enough to really care about her story. And Isabel is a bit enigmatic about her purposes here.

My ending frustration is that the neighbor didn't just leave a not in the flat! How hard would it have been?!?! Okay. Overall, a wonderful story.