REVIEW: AN ORDINARY LIFE, BY AMANDA PROWSE

 

Christmas Eve, 2019. Ninety-four-year-old Molly lies in her hospital bed. A stroke and a fall may have broken her body—but her mind is alive with memories.

London, 1940s. Molly is a bright young woman, determined to help the war effort and keep her head up despite it all. Life becomes brighter when she meets and falls in love with a man who makes her forget everything with one dance. But then war forces her to make an unforgettable sacrifice, and when she’s brought to her knees by a daring undercover mission with the French Resistance, only her sister knows the secret weighing heavily on Molly’s heart.

Now, lying in her hospital bed, Molly can’t escape the memories of what she lost all those years ago. But she is not as alone as she thinks.

Will she be able to find peace—and finally understand that what seemed to be an ordinary life was anything but?

 

 

 

 

An Ordinary Life opens on Christmas Eve, 2019, with 94-year-old Molly in hospital after a stroke and a fall. As she lies in the bed, her mind traipses back over the years and through the many memorable moments that have decorated her life.

As a teenager in the 1940s, she fell in love with a man she hoped to spend her life with, but that was not to be her destiny. A lovely treasure has come out of that love, but the war rages and leads to a choice that will change everything in ways she cannot undo.

I loved Molly’s journey through the war years and afterwards and felt a lump in my throat at the life she had lost. And for what would happen in the subsequent years. I kept hoping for peace and love for her at last…but would she find it?

I enjoyed the author’s descriptions of the settings, events, and how she brought Molly’s little cottage to life for me. A cozy place that could somehow fill in the empty places in her life.

The characters that also filled in the gaps in her life were family members, those who could substitute for some of her losses.

The book’s title “an ordinary life” might seem like a misnomer, but by the end of the tale, one could conclude that the ordinary moments were the ones to be treasured. A 5 star read.