Why a Booktrail?
1940s: 16-year-old refugee Addie escapes Fascist Italy to live in Atlantic City with her aunt and uncle. But her journey is not over yet..
The Last Embrace
What you need to know before your trail
1940 and WW2 is looming. There is fear across the world and in Fascist Italy the shadows of war are darker than most. Sixteen year old Addie may not know it yet but when she is packed off to Atlantic city, it could just save her life.
Settling in to the American way, she soon finds love and acceptance but tragedy strikes and life will never be the same again.
Moving on to Washington and London, she finds work as a reporter. Her history gives her a unique angle on life. But then someone from her past reappears. Has she been running away from something all this time?
Travel Guide
It’s only right that this story is from the mouth of Addie, a small Italian Jewish girl. For this is her story. Her story of being a war refugee, an Italian stranger in an American city. A female war correspondent and someone with secrets from the past.
Atlantic City
1940 Addie arrives in Abescon Bay (Atlantic city where she meets the Connally family and becomes a part of their lives. She befriends the boys of the family who adopt her in a way and help her to fit in as best she can. This represents freedom and a new start for her and the unadulterated joy she finds here is in stark contrast to the war back home. She still remains vulnerable though – a stranger viewed with suspicion.
Washington DC
Addie is nothing if not determined and feisty and with the confidence of someone who has moved and had to think quickly in order to survive. Addie’s determination to succeed is admirable as is her grit and strength. This is a girl who has grown up in a world undergoing extreme change, where being Jewish can be a dangerous thing. And being a woman the most difficult thing of all.
“Washington was a city occupied not just by the thousands who had come here to work but by the army that defended it as though the Germans might at any moment descend from the sky.”
London, England
Her career starts off well in Washington at the Washington Post in Fleet Street and she works for Teddy, an Oxbridge reporter who sees something in her. She gets a unique angle of the Jews in Europe and their life now that Hitler is in power. These are scary times and Addie examines their fate whilst comparing it to her own. Scenes here are evocative and poignant. What a unique angle Addie gives to the story.
It’s in England where her story takes a new and unexpected turn. England is in the grip of war and closer to the battlefields that her aunt and uncle wanted her so far away from. But England like Addie knows how to fight. London during the war is scary and unsure, but Addie’s life continues to take her in directions she never would have expected.
Streetview Maps
PA: Port of Philadelphia
Addie arrives for her new life in America via this port
Addie arrives for her new life in America via this port
NJ: Sunset Avenue
Where Addie returns to at the start of the book and where she remembers the neighbours
Where Addie returns to at the start of the book and where she remembers the neighbours
Washington DC : Old Ebbitt Grill
Where she is to confront someone from her past
Where she is to confront someone from her past
England,London :Porchester Terrace
Addie has a flat here
Addie has a flat here
Booktrailer Review
Susan @thebooktrailer :
I’ve loved Pam Jenoff’s books for some time but this one was a nice surprise as it was totally not the book I expected. The theme of war and of being Jewish during the war really gave me an insight into what it must have been like for a youjg child and as she tried to fit in with her life in america, I felt both admiration and sadness for her fate. Her story was quite a complex one but the way Pam writes, it’s never hard to follow and the emotional angle continues all the way through. Having Addie as the narrator was a great idea as who can tell her story better than her? I felt as if I was with her, reading her mind, thoughts and emotions and really wanted her to end up with one man (no spoilers) but was shocked by the end! Addie must be the example of so many children taken from their families and sent to safety and the scenes on the harbour were particularly poignant to me.
I really love Pam’s books as she always shows the human side, the vulnerable side to people during the war and I always feel humbled by getting to know her characters.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:
Twitter: @PamJenoff
Facebook: /PamJenoffauthor
Web: pamjenoff.com
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