The Clockmaker’s Wife
By Daisy Wood
Blurb
The world is at war. And time is running out…
London, 1940. Britain is gripped by the terror of the Blitz, forcing Nell Spelman to flee the capital with her young daughter – leaving behind her husband, Arthur, the clockmaker who keeps Big Ben chiming.
When Arthur disappears, Nell is desperate to find him. But her search will lead her into far darker places than she ever imagined…
New York, Present Day. When Ellie discovers a beautiful watch that had once belonged to a grandmother she never knew, she becomes determined to find out what happened to her. But as she pieces together the fragments of her grandmother’s life, she begins to wonder if the past is better left forgotten…
Our Review
The Clockmaker's Wife by Daisy Wood had me hooked from the beginning.
Initially, I struggled to engage with Nell's character as she appeared to be nothing more than a vapid stereotype of a war era wife, apologising for not having made herself presentable before her husband got home. Thankfully, as the story progressed so too did Nell's character.
My interest in war novels has previously been limited to books set in Germany or experiences in various concentration camps so I found the glimpses of London during the Blitz a welcome change.
When Nell and Arthur's home is destroyed by a bomb Nell knows it is time she and her daughter Alice went back to her parents for a little while. She can't bear to leave Arthur but he has to stay in London to continue his job working on the clocks for the Palace of Westminster.
Nell returns to her parents home and finds her mother preoccupied with a house full of evacuees and her father is as surly as ever. Soon she settles into the rhythm of life back home but then she receives a mysterious phonecall from Arthur shortly before he goes missing. Nell returns to London to discover what has happened to her beloved husband and puts herself at risk in doing so.
Ellie, Nell's grandaughter, was much more relatable and the story in her timeline was equally interesting for me. Her mother Alice is in a care home and her memory is rapidly failing, Ellie wants to discover more about her mother's family and tell her about it before it is too late.
The Clockmaker's Wife is a beautifully descriptive piece of writing.
"They gaze out over London, quiet in the deep blue haze of evening. The dolphin streetlamps along the Embankment are shining like strings of pearls as the sinking sun outlines fluffy clouds in pink and gold; the light of barges heading towards the docks gleam like fireflies on the water."
The Clockmaker's Wife is well paced, original and a surprisingly refreshing take on Blitz time London.
Our Final Rating...
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