A House on the Rhine by Frances Faviell, a pseudonym for the late British author and painter Olivia Faviell Lucas, is her vintage literary fiction novel set in the aftermath of WWII in Cologne, Germany, exploring the conflicts in a German family and its surrounding society which is struggling with the changes brought about by the end of the war, and the divide between the parents, who were part of the Nazi-ruled establishment, and the children, who are rebelling in various ways, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Dean Street Press.
This has previously been offered free in 2016. This was originally published in 1955 by Rupert Hart-Davis, and this new edition contains an afterword by the author's son who also lived through the time period in the novel (their family was stationed in Berlin as part of the post-war occupation), along with other supplementary material, which is always nice to see.
Incidentally, you can read a lot more about the history of this over at the publisher's subimprint
blogpost.
Currently free @
Amazon (available to Canadians & in the UK and pretty much everywhere else Amazon sells worldwide, since this is being done via their KDP Select exclusive-or-else program)
Description
Having made her publishing debut with The Dancing Bear, a superb memoir of life in Berlin immediately after World War II, Frances Faviell applied first-hand knowledge to fiction, telling the riveting, harrowing tale of one large, troubled family in Germany nearly a decade after the war’s end.
In a town near Cologne, rebuilding is proceeding at a frantic pace, factory work is plentiful and well-paid, and the dark days of near-starvation have ended. But Joseph, a former Allied prisoner of war, and his enormous brood—his wife having received a medal under the Nazis for bearing more than 10 children—face new problems ranging from the mother’s infidelity, the oldest child’s involvement with a brutal youth gang leader, and a beloved adopted daughter’s plans to marry an American soldier.
Vividly portraying the love and conflict of a large family and the dramatic, sometimes tragic social change of Germany’s postwar recovery, A House on the Rhine is a powerful, heartbreaking tale from the author of the London Blitz memoir A Chelsea Concerto. This new edition includes an afterword by Frances Faviell’s son, John Parker, and other supplementary material.