Honeymoon in HellHoneymoon in Hell is a remarkable rediscovered World War Two novel about a young couple grappling with the challenges of escaping from Nazi-occupied France September 1939. Star-crossed newly-weds, Anthea and Igor, have enjoyed a lazy summer on the French Riviera with their fun-loving friends, but a disturbing undercurrent lies beneath their insouciance. She is just sweet seventeen, and he a worldly thirty. They return to Paris, a city once synonymous with love and art, now overshadowed by the spectre of war. June 1940. The couple flee from the Nazi occupiers and join the exodus heading south. Their baby son is born during the bombardment of Bordeaux, and she survives childbed fever. They return to Paris. Igor expects to be mobilized into the French Army. Anthea is put under house arrest by the Gestapo under threat of internment. They plan an escape with a smuggler across the demarcation line to the Free Zone, narrowly evading a Nazi trap at the border by hiding in a hotel swarming with Gestapo agents. Guided by gamekeepers and accompanied by two Gaullists, they safely cross the line with their baby hidden in a pillowcase. In Marseille, they take refuge in a brothel. By January 1941 they are in Cannes where seduction and corruption thrive under the sun. Is the unoccupied southern zone under the Vichy government any safer? Will their marriage survive for better or for worse? |
