Solitaire : Clara Vine #5
June 1940: the first summer of the war. Berlin is being bombed and nightly blackouts suffocate the city.
Then France falls and a shadow descends. A shadow has fallen over Clara Vine’s own life, too. She is an Anglo-German woman in a country that hates England. Virulent anti-British propaganda is everywhere.
Then she is summoned to meet the Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels who has decided that Clara should adopt a new role – as his spy — and that she must go to Paris on a mission.
Much as she dislikes the idea, Clara realises this might be the chance to find an escape route to England. But Goebbels has other ideas and soon Clara is drawn into a web that threatens to destroy her. As everything she holds dear is taken as ransom, she must fight to protect her family – and to survive…
Then France falls and a shadow descends. A shadow has fallen over Clara Vine’s own life, too. She is an Anglo-German woman in a country that hates England. Virulent anti-British propaganda is everywhere.
Then she is summoned to meet the Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels who has decided that Clara should adopt a new role – as his spy — and that she must go to Paris on a mission.
Much as she dislikes the idea, Clara realises this might be the chance to find an escape route to England. But Goebbels has other ideas and soon Clara is drawn into a web that threatens to destroy her. As everything she holds dear is taken as ransom, she must fight to protect her family – and to survive…
Reviews
Fabulously sophisticated entertainment
Metro
A great read. Clara is a heroine one can admire: apart from her ability as an actress to act a part convincingly, she has only her courage and intelligence to see her through. At the end of the novel it becomes apparent that Clara’s own story is not over and I am looking forward to its successors, not only for Clara but for the many others with whom she becomes involved – will any of them survive? Recommended.
Radmila May, Promoting Crime Fiction
This series about Clara Vine, the Anglo-German actress and spy, just gets better and better. Solitaire, Jane Thynne’s latest book in the series, continues to weave its way through WWII bringing in real historic figures and facts to a fictional spy story. .. this combination of historical fact and fiction in Jane Thynne’s books is a perfect balance..brilliant prose.
Annabel, CountryWives Magazine
Jane Thynne’s Clara Vine novels must be among the most reliably enjoyable reads around . . . .as thrillingly vivid as ever—Thynne has clearly done her homework—yet she drops in the telling details with a casualness that only makes them more devastating.
Reader's Digest
Jane Thynne’s Clara Vine series is like literary crack to me. By day Clara is a German film star, by night she’s a British agent working to defeat the Nazis from within. These books have it all: glamour, intrigue, death-defying escapades and romance. What else could you possibly want?
Red Magazine
Thynne is superb at depicting the sense of claustrophobia and paranoia engendered by living under a totalitarian regime, and the terrible dilemma adults faced when confronted with the dangerous naivety of teenagers who have been brought up on a diet of Nazi propaganda. But the book is also laced with dark humour.
Historical Novel Review
I love these books, I think they're great. The real characters are really well done and in Solitaire we get to meet Ian Fleming. I wonder if when Fleming was writing James Bond and all those glamorous women he thought of Clara Vine who he met in Lisbon in 1940...
Ron Serdiuk, ABC Radio Brisbane
Clara Vine is not to be missed. The ending was incredible and left the series wide open for its next instalment. Which I long to read!
Anne Bonny Book Reviews
Ms. Thynne has done her research meticulously. She brings together all the elements of what the war was like with her vivid descriptions and scenery. She then injects the harsh life of a woman, but one who is most certainly headstrong and brave, to create this wonderful, mesmerising book.
Whispering Stories Book Blog
This is the first book I have read by Jane, and it won’t be the last. The meticulous research and extremely polished writing skills combine to make this a very readable novel...Highly recommended
Trip Fiction
Whilst this is the first book that I have read by this author and it certainly won't be the last, I really loved the writing style and the characters were great - the whole story flowed really well. It was gripping in places and I was hooked.
Donna Maguire, book blogger
