Crooked Heart

A Novel

By: Lissa Evans

Narrated by: Karen Cass

Paper Moon meets the Blitz in this original black comedy, set in World War II England, chronicling an unlikely alliance between a small time con artist and a young orphan evacuee.

When Noel Bostock—aged ten, no family—is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge—a thirty-six-year old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she’s unscrupulous about how she gets it.

Noel’s mourning his godmother Mattie, a former suffragette. Wise beyond his years, raised with a disdain for authority and an eclectic attitude toward education, he has little in common with other children and even less with the impulsive Vee, who hurtles from one self-made crisis to the next. The war’s provided unprecedented opportunities for making money, but what Vee needs—and what she’s never had—is a cool head and the ability to make a plan.

On her own, she’s a disaster. With Noel, she’s a team.

Together, they cook up a scheme. Crisscrossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war—and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn’t actually safe at all. . . .

it was a nice story but...

It was a nice story but difficult to follow in audio. The different stories bounce back and forth and causes a blur of characters and plot. Not too bad but enough to confuse for a moment or two.

Didn't want this to end!

I almost didn't want to keep listening because I didn't want the story to end. The narrator is outstanding, making clearly delineated characters with a variety of British accents. The story centers around a child evacuee during the London Blitz in WWII but is really so much more. While it gives a very good picture of what the blitz was like it also shows the many sides of human nature during a life-and-death period during England's "finest hour." I especially enjoyed the touches of humor.

Out of the Rubble

Out of the Rubble of the London Blitz
comes a story of lost souls who manage in their own way to survive,.
A precocious evacuee, emotionally scarred woman who takes him into her
dysfunctional home and how they both
grow as London is bombed. The reader(or listener) grows to love these two as the story, at once comedic and heartbreaking evolves.

Best narrator ever

Scored this . Funny and poignant, with an absolutely perfect narrator. The humor is do subtlety witty, and the narrator really brings the characters to life.

Touching, quirky and brilliant.

Noel is ten years old, he is clever and precocious, he has no friends his age and he lives with his increasingly erratic elderly godmother. He is never bored with Mattie. They go to the museum, she sets him areas of study and has him write essays on diverse subjects, and she regales him with stories of her years as a suffragette. But now Hitler is dropping bombs on London and Mattie is starting to frighten Noel...

This is a fantastic novel, about how things come apart, and how they come together. Set in Blitz London, I really love the background story, which brings out the best and the worst in people.