*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: The Locket
Author: Natalie Meg Evans
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: ★★★★
England, 1942. 'It has to stay secret,' he whispers,
placing the locket around her neck. 'If they find it, they’ll send me away.' As
she holds the locket, glinting in the moonlight, she can’t hold back the tears.
'I just wish we didn’t have to hide…'
When farmer’s daughter Irene meets Theodore at
a village dance, sparks fly instantly. The war has brought him all the way from
Louisiana to build a US airbase just across her father’s fields, but as they
sway together, there is nothing else in the world. Only his gentle touch and
his deep brown eyes.
But being together comes at a price. As Theodore is Black,
the might of the US Air Force is against them, and all the members of the
little village community disapprove of their relationship. And they will all go
to terrible lengths to tear the two young lovers apart...
Decades later, heartbroken Ruby is back at her
family’s crumbling farmhouse for the first time in years, after the loss of her
beloved grandmother Irene. The roof has fallen in, family photographs are
damaged – and her grandmother’s jewellery is nowhere to be found.
When Ruby uncovers her grandmother’s waterlogged diaries,
she discovers that Irene treasured one piece of lost jewellery above all. A
locket from a man called Theodore. And the missing locket holds the key to
unravelling a heartbreaking secret that changed her grandmother’s life…
Is someone in the village hiding the locket to keep the truth about Irene and Theodore buried? And can Ruby find a way to honour her grandmother’s memory – or in digging up the pain of the war, will she tear her family apart?
The Locket is a breathtaking, compelling new historical fiction novel from
author Natalie Meg Evans. Set against the backdrop of rural Suffolk during the
Second World War, it is the story of a forbidden romance between Irene, a young
local white woman, and Theo a black US Air Force airman based locally. The
story is told through a dual-timeline narrative, moving between Irene’s story
in the 1940s and her granddaughter Ruby’s story in 2022/23 as she moves into
her late grandmother’s home and reads her wartime diaries for the first time. The
book perfectly combines the story of this forbidden romance with a mystery
fuelled by family secrets and I was hooked from the very first page.
Natalie Meg Evans has a magical storytelling ability which makes
you feel like you are right there in the 1940s. As someone who was born and
raised in East Anglia, I really enjoyed the small touch of including Suffolk dialect
as it really helped the setting to further come alive on the page. I did find
the story to feel slightly slow and drawn out at times but the pace quickly
picked up again.
Both Irene and Ruby were beautifully written protagonists
with such depth to their characters. I also thought Philippa was a fantastically
written and very complex character through whom the long-lasting impact of
child-abuse was shown. Theo was another fantastic character whose charm had me
immediately falling in love with him and it was heartbreaking to see the disgusting
treatment he experienced simply due to the colour of his skin.
As the story focuses around racism and particularly the prejudice
experienced by the black members of the US military based in the UK during the
war, it is incredibly hard-hitting but equally such an important read. I’m sure
I’m not alone in saying that prior to reading The Locket I was ashamedly ignorant to the
racial segregation that existed for the US troops based in the UK but Theo’s story
has really opened my eyes and encouraged me to educate myself further on such
an important topic.
Overall, The Locket is a powerful and incredibly gripping
piece of historical fiction which is both heart-breaking and heart-warming.
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