Embers in the London Sky
Sarah Sundin
Revell Pub
Feb 6th, 2023
Embers In The London Sky by Sarah Sundin is a very riveting and compelling novel. In many ways it is relatable to what is going on today. Sundin takes readers on a journey along with the characters and they experience all the emotions.
“While I was researching Until Leaves Fall in Paris I read how the refugees fled from the Nazi armies in Belgium, Netherlands, and France. There were over a million on the road where some thrust their children into cars, figuring they would have a better chance than on foot. After the exodus they could not find their children and read about the many classified ads looking for their children. This broke my heart. I used this to write the story.”
As the German army invades the Netherlands in 1940, Aleida van der Zee Martens escapes to London to wait out the Occupation. Separated from her three-year-old son, Theo, in the process, the young widow desperately searches for her child, while working for an agency responsible for evacuating children to the countryside.
“Aleida has an abusive husband who is ashamed of their three-year-old boy because he is missing some fingers. She lost her son when her husband thrust the child into a passing car while she was sleeping. Her husband dies in an air raid before he can tell her who has the child, so she has become very anxious. She is quiet, controlling, determined, and direct. Aleida is also intense, persistent, and wounded.”
When German bombs set London ablaze, BBC radio correspondent Hugh Collingwood reports on the Blitz, eager to boost morale while walking the fine line between truth and censorship. But the Germans are not the only ones Londoners have to fear as a series of murders flame up amid the ashes.
“After the bombs started falling some parents still said no because they were being asked to send their child to a place they have never been, with people they did not know. That takes an incredible amount of trust. Then there were the children sent away with some who had a great experience because of the kind and understanding foster-type parents they stayed with. But there were others who had issues because they were urban children, many from the lower classes being sent into a rural middle-class environment. They had culture shock not to mention neglect and abuse, fortunately less common.”
The deaths hit close to home for Hugh, and Aleida needs his help to locate her missing son. As they work together, they grow closer and closer, both to each other and the answers they seek. But with bombs falling and continued killings, they may be running out of time.
This is a compelling and riveting story. It is relevant today as those families still search and hope for a reunion with their loved ones who were taken hostage by Hamas.
