Product Description

In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.

Peter Ho Daviess thought-provoking and profoundly moving first novel traces a perilous wartime romance as it explores the bonds of love and duty that hold us to family, country, and ultimately our fellow man. Vividly rooted in history and landscape, THE WELSH GIRL reminds us anew of the pervasive presence of the past, and the startling intimacy of the foreign.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2049 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Maggie O'Farrell, Observer Books of the Year
'A beautifully crafted, lyrical novel'

Review

'A beautifully crafted, lyrical novel'

(Maggie O'Farrell, Observer Books of the Year )

'Moving, memorable and beautifully written'

(Jessica Mann, Sunday Telegraph )

'Deeply felt and vividly imagined'

(Lionel Shriver, Daily Telegraph )

'Fresh and engaging…Some sentences and passages are crafted so beautifully and seemingly effortlessly that it provokes envy.'

(David Cornett, Sunday Express )

'Quietly powerful… a fine piece of work

(Stephen Knight, Times Literary Supplement )

'His prose and the evocation of time and place are almost always of the highest order…he approaches the Second World War with a fresh and contemporary style, a gift that he shares with Kazuo Ishiguro'

(Russell Celyn Jones, The Times )

'A scintillating instance of fictional imagination applied to history'

(Richard Eder, New York Times )

'Impressive…a compelling story in itself, but Davies’s special skill lies in integrating conflicts that drive the narrative at a more intense level'

(Richard Gwyn, Independent )

'deft and graceful' (Good Book Guide )

Sunday Telegraph
'A moving, memorable and beautifully written book about displacement and its opposite...a gripping human story'

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Customer Reviews

Something my mum didn't enjoy...
...but I thought it was quite enjoyable. Nothing earth-shattering but it did keep my interest all the way through.

The Welsh slant to a WWII story was something that I hadn't really considered before but I'm afraid I really didn't see the point of the Hesse storyline, I didn't feel that it added very much to the plot.

I borrowed this book from my Mum who said that she didn't enjoy it at all, but then we do tend to have completely opposing taste in books!

Overall recommendation - good beach / tube read!

A bit of a mish mash
This book was recommended to me but I found it very disappointing! It reads like some of the detective series on TV - five or six subplots with little initial connection - you have to have the patience to get two thirds of the way through to make the connections. Unfortunately this requires an act of faith.The characters in the first chapter are like cardboard cut outs and once we get into the story proper the dialog is cliche ridden and unconvincing. I have known Wales well, including during the period covered by the story, and it does not ring many bells for me.For a real feel of Wales try "Come Home Charlie by Delderfield.

Pleasant read
This was a nice pleasant read, but that's it..... just nice. I liked the characters and it was nice to read the effects of WW2 from another perspective. Again, like other reviewers I found the book description on the back cover slightly misleading. I think the stories of the 3 main characters could have been meshed more together. Would have liked more scenes with Karsten and Esther.
It was a nicely told story with characters you could believe in.