The Storyteller of Casablanca
£6.60£8.50 (-22%)
In this evocative tale from the bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift, a strange new city offers a young girl hope. Can it also offer a lost soul a second chance?
Morocco, 1941. With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America. Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters. It’s a world away from the trouble back home―and Josie loves it.
Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling―with her marriage, her baby daughter and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place. But when she discovers a small wooden box and a diary from the 1940s beneath the floorboards of her daughter’s bedroom, Zoe enters the inner world of young Josie, who once looked out on the same view of the Atlantic Ocean, but who knew a very different Casablanca.
It’s not long before Zoe begins to see her adopted city through Josie’s eyes. But can a new perspective help her turn tragedy into hope, and find the comfort she needs to heal her broken heart?
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Additional information
| Publisher | Lake Union Publishing (21 Sept. 2021) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 315 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1542032105 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1542032100 |
| Dimensions | 12.9 x 2.54 x 19.81 cm |
by Joshua Kassanis
This was a present for my mum and she kept telling me how good it is- and she reads a lot of fiction. She says it’s got an original storyline and an genuinely unguessable ending!
by Scotlanda
This is a beautifully told story , Fiona Valpy has taken care to combine a saga that crosses generations with a story that you want to devour in an afternoon.The description of Casablanca is in detail, so much that you find yourself transported there. Fiona Valpy’s books are a joy to read and this is one of her very best.
by Novi M
A devastating blow to happen to suddenly loose a child and have no help to get over the trauma of that, and moving to Casablanca of all places to start a new life, wow, but, finding solace from the wonderful inhabitants slowly come to terms with their loss. NM
by Sally-Ann Ingram
Stepping back in time makes an evocative read around the windy streets of Casablanca. Mind racing historical chapters. How will it all end!
by G M Niven
Two women linked by a journal written by one and found under floorboards of a house in Casablanca by the other. A story of French refugees from WW2 and African refugees in 2010. Of mental health and the strength to overcome the odds.
Highly recommended.
by Kindle Customer
Beautiful, emotional, facinating story. It is as though she is telling her own life story the details seem so real and personal . She is like an artist painting a picture every word like a brush stroke.
by Aries Cat
Fiona Valpy is a really excellent author. I have read several of her books and am always impressed with the fact that they are all so different. I did guess the possible ending at about the half-way point but it didn’t spoil anything. It’s a wonderful family story set both during the Second World War and the modern day. I never ceased to be amazed and appalled at what the human race is capable of in terms of discrimination and its ability to hate for no good reason, and that we have learned nothing from the horrors of war. The author entwines this ghastly truth into her excellent story. The amount of research Ms Valpy does is colossal and in many ways her books are educational as well as entertaining, weaving as she does, real history into the fiction and vice versa. Her stories are also a good length so there is a feeling of ‘value for money’. A truly believable narrative backed up with historical facts. Sad. Uplifting. Well told.
by Lynn
I very much enjoyed this book. A young woman, husband and baby move to Casablanca. Feeling adrift our heroine wanders around the city carrying some heavy burden from the past. She discovers a diary of a young Jewish girl from the 1940s. All is not as it seems…