Natasha Solomons's The House at Tyneford tells in flowery tones a dynastic tale of romance and grief in war-torn Britain. Set in 1938, the Viennese heroine, Elise Landau is separated from her close-knit family by the impounding peril of war. To Elise, her Jewish identity means little more than a bohemian lifestyle, but her parents Julian and Anna know their unwed daughter must be sent away from Austria for her protection.
Young Elise is taken in by a stately manor in England, her safety bartered for her demotion from respectable Fraulein to mere chambermaid. Elise's shortcomings as a servant are intensified by her homesickness for her sister and parents, the latter of whom she receives little news. When Mr. Rivers's devilish son Kit returns from Cambridge, Elise has a new distraction, but hardly a reprieve from heartache.
The simple story is adorned with visceral beauty, the descriptions of the English countryside are adundant with "swallows zooming" and "snapdragons dyed vermillion pink in the setting sun." Elise's bildungsroman gradually slides into the account of a survivor, a body count of her loved ones rising. Her world explodes by the blasts of warfare, ruthlessly stripped to its bones, all in the name of patriotic necessity. Enmeshed in Elise's seismic uncertainties is her pursuit of self and identity. She is neither maid, nor proper English woman. She is not Kit's wife, nor is she his mistress. Her sense of residence in limbo is felt by both Elise and the reader throughout the story. It is only in the end,when it seesms that nothing of Elise's old or new life remains, does she finally find home in the most unexpected of places.
