#BookReview Wait for Me by Santa Montefiore @SantaMontefiore @SimonSchusterCA #WaitforMe #SantaMontefiore #SimonSchusterCA Title: Wait for Me

Author: Santa Montefiore

Published by: Simon and Schuster on Jul. 18, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

From #1 internationally bestselling author Santa Montefiore comes a gripping new novel of enduring love and devastating secrets, sweeping across England during WWII to Australia five decades later, based on a true story.

Rupert promised he was going to come back. All Florence had to do was wait.

Cornwall, 1944
When Rupert Dash is declared missing, presumed dead during the Battle of Arnhem, his wife, Florence, is devastated. She can’t accept that he has gone from her life forever, and so when she finds a poem called ‘Wait for Me’ hidden in an old book, she believes it’s a sign from her husband. A promise that he will return to her.

London, 1988
Since childhood Max has suffered from a recurring nightmare. Surrounded by the horrific chaos of war, he has an urgent mission he knows he must complete. But time after time, the dream ends with him awaking in terror, his heart pounding from the horror of the battlefield. Desperate to understand why he is haunted by such terrible visions, Max embarks on a journey that leads him to Cornwall and a man named Rupert Dash.

Melbourne, 1995
Florence receives a letter from someone she has never met, who lives on the other side of the world. This stranger says he remembers a life that belonged to another before him. Could this be the one person Florence has waited fifty-one years to meet again?


Review:

Captivating, poignant, and incredibly romantic!

Wait for Me is an absorbing tale set in England during the early 1940s and late 1980s as well as Australia in the mid-1990s that takes you into the lives of three main characters; Florence, a young woman who finds the love of her life in the brother of the boy she always had a crush on, Rupert, a newlywed who tragically loses his life on the battlefields of Holland, and Max a young man who suffers from vivid nightmares and detailed memories of a life lived and lost before his time.

The writing is passionate and moving. The characters are hopeful, hesitant, and endearing. And the plot is an engaging, touching, heartfelt tale about life, loss, friendship, family, hope, heartbreak, tragedy, destiny, fate, war, and love, all interwoven with a thread of the supernatural.

Overall, Wait for Me is an evocative, enchanting, immersive, beautifully written tale by Montefiore that I absolutely devoured, highly recommend, and will undoubtedly be one of the books I’m talking about for some time to come. It makes you smile, it makes you cry, and ultimately leaves you pondering if love has the power to calm, cure, unite, touch, and heal the soul, is it too far to imagine that it can also endure for more than one lifetime.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

     

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Santa Montefiore

Santa Montefiore’s books have been translated into twenty languages and have sold more than four million copies in England and Europe. She is married to writer Simon Sebag Montefiore. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha, in London.

Photograph by Santa Montefiore