Over the next few days, it becomes apparent that the little girl, Pamela, is effectively an orphan, and she remains with Ellen and her husband, as their unofficial foster daughter.

Ellen and her husband are already fostering three young boys from London as part of the children evacuation scheme. She takes her home for the night, along with several other evacuees, who they are providing emergency shelter for. In the midst of assisting the evacuees, she comes upon a small child, only about four years of age, sleeping alone on a bus, seemingly belonging to no one. Ellen, newly married to an older man whom she adores and who in turn adores her, is comfortably upper class, childless by choice, and running the local mill with her husband. When the story opens, the village of Upton is in the midst of helping evacuees from Southampton, whose homes have been bombed in German air raids. We Must Be Brave is as much of a community story as it is Ellen’s. Well, you’ve got no idea what I can endure for her sake.” You say I’ve got no idea about war, and shelling.

I can walk twenty miles with nothing inside me but the skin of a baked potato. And I can carry her, further than anyone. You have to do that, you know, if you’ve just given a child your own food. I know how to suck on a pebble to keep hunger pangs away. How you can let it sink right into your bones, and it won’t damage you at all. “Do you know why I’m not frightened of the cold? Because I know about it. This novel covers a large period of time, it’s quiet and literary, character driven for most of the way I just adored every single page. It examines the different ways in which people can make an impact on the lives of others and explores the many different types of love that can exist. Such a beautifully moving study on love, compassion, and courage. But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never theirs to keep…įor anyone who loved All the Light We Cannot See and The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, We Must Be Brave is a luminous novel about the ways we can rescue one another, and the many different forms that courage can take. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all. Five-year-old Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone.Įllen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she had dreamed for herself. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly-married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. A novel about courage and kindness, hardship and friendship – and the astonishing power of love.ĭecember, 1940.

We must be brave frances liardet