Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France

This had potential, but it falls apart early on and never recovers. What started off as a great concept just never gets off the ground. The idea of finding a relative’s secret papers in a trunk after she passes, which expose a world you did not know about, is the topic of a great non-fiction detective story. To retrace their life, and the life that they kept hidden from the world, is the basic story line of this book. Nicholas Shakespeare inherits a trunk of his late aunt’s papers. As he goes through them, he gets a picture that is vastly different than one he grew up with and attempts to tell her story of living in France in World War II.

The problem with this book is not the idea; it’s the execution. The author rambles all over the place and jumps from idea to idea, with little transition. Also, he spends way too long to get to the meat of the story: his aunt in France. Instead, a good portion is spent on her life after France and the times he remembers visiting her at her home in England. It just does not work.