COVENTRY: A NOVEL by Helen Humphreys

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

On the night of November 14, 1940, the Luftwaffe dropped over 500 tons of high explosives on Coventry, England, leveling the city center and destroying historic Coventry Cathedral. Protagonists Maeve and Harriet tap into their artistic sensibilities as artist and poet, respectively, as they separately guide us through the raid’s devastation. We step with each of Maeve and Harriet through the apocalyptic ruins of Coventry, encountering the dead and dying on a slow trudge to their own loss as their paths converge and they learn the fate of Maeve’s son, Jeremy. I wondered if the stakes for Maeve and Harriet reconnecting paled in comparison to the magnitude of the horror inflicted by the raid, but perhaps that is the point. Untold thousands had their unremarkable existences shattered by a military action designed to break the spirits of ordinary citizens. With a smaller number of pages than most on this list, Ms. Humphreys has a talent for packing poignant descriptions of a horrific night that shouldn’t be forgotten into an approachable read.