We Must Be Brave

Written by Frances Liardet

Narrated by Penelope Freeman and Louise Jameson

We can’t choose who we love. We can choose who we fight for.

‘A powerful story that proves how love itself requires courage’ Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing
‘Storytelling at its best’ Sarah Winman
‘The perfect book club read’ AJ Pearce

Ellen Parr has always been sure she never wanted children. But when she finds a young girl asleep and unclaimed at the back of a bus fleeing the Blitz in Southampton, everything she once believed is overturned.
 
As she takes Pamela into her home, the little girl cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she thought she wanted, for in uncertain times it seems the only certainty is love.
 
But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never hers to keep…
 
We Must Be Brave is an epic and intensely moving novel about the ways we rescue one other, and the astonishing tenacity of the human heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Feb 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780008280178

Frances Liardet

Frances Liardet is a child of the children of the Second World War. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and studied Arabic at Oxford before traveling to Cairo to work as a translator. She currently lives in Somerset, England, with her husband and daughter, and runs a summer writing session called Bootcamp. We Must Be Brave is her second novel.

Reviews for We Must Be Brave

[Nicola Rogers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an amazing book. When I started it I thought I had stepped into a Mills and Boon type novel where the characters and storyline were obvious. As the story unfolded I realized I couldn't be more wrong. The author writes about emotions in such a way that the reader gets completely wrapped up in the characters. It is so beautifully written and quite harrowing at times but so completely relatable. I loved the book and would highly recommend it as I have done to several people.

[Shelly Turner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely book! I couldn’t wait to get time to listen to more of it! I fell in love with the characters. Was narrated very well too, with each voice I knew which character it was without needing to be told.
Recommend this lovely book

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good, but I didn't like this one nearly as much as some of the other WWII historical fiction I've read. At one point, I was very interested in the story surrounding Pamela, the child Ellan finds and essentially adopts, but the central pieces of her story are revealed a little too early in the novel and makes for a long, drawn-out conclusion.

[starbox_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An intensely lovely book - and in lesser hands, this story could have been sentimental and sickly. It was captivating and quite unforgettable.In an English village in WW2, an abandoned child is discovered in a bombing raid. She ends up with young wife Ellen and her older, war-damaged husband. Ms Liardet completely evokes the world of rural 1944.But we go back in time too - Ellen's impoverished early years in a falling down cottage with a mentally adrift mother. And forwards in time too, as the past is revisited many years later.The compelling storyline doesnt detract from it as a meditation on time passing, acceptance of out lot...and the utterly passionate love of a parent and child.Superlative.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ellen Parr finds a little girl without her mother aboard an evacuee bus. She takes the girl home while a search is made. The Southampton hotel where her mom stayed was bombed, and the mother killed. They begin to search for the girl's father. Ellen and little Pamela bond during that time. The story follows Ellen through time with another girl in the 1970s. The story was not well told. The narrative seemed disjointed, and sometimes the reader wondered whether the current portion was happening in the stated present day or was a reminisce of the past. Ultimately this was not much of a story, and the ending left the reader in the dark. I think the author tried to cover too much and failed miserably. The story of Pamela could have stood on its own and been more fully developed.

[nwieme-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good. Sad. Not sure about the ending. Lucy is a great character! Ellen wasn't bad either.

[.l.p · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We Must Be Brave is a tender and poignant tale of an Englishwoman named Ellen Parr and her experiences through World War II and the profound effect that a little girl named Pamela has on Ellen’s life when Ellen finds this young girl unaccompanied on a bus of evacuees. Ellen grows to love Pamela as her own child and the novel explores their everyday life and how their subsequent separation affects them both deeply for decades to come after the war. We Must Be Brave is not a fast-paced book and it is not heavily focused on the war but it is a celebration of enduring parental love and human connections. Frances Liardet’s writing is beautiful, whimsical and quite descriptive and evokes a range of emotions from love, despair, hope, sorrow and joy. Whilst I found the first quarter of the novel to be almost too slow - initially struggling to connect with any of the characters, I’m glad I persevered a little more as the story shifts focus to Ellen’s backstory from her childhood growing up to her young adult life as she tries to rise above her family’s fall from grace. This would have to be my favourite part of the novel, I became quite invested as I was able to really connect with Ellen, empathise with her struggles and appreciate the beauty of human kindness. We Must Be Brave is not one of those novels where I felt compelled to read it cover to cover as it travels at a slower pace, it is a story to savour and reflect on for it tears at your heartstrings and reminds you about the astonishing power of love in all its different shapes and forms and particularly the enduring love between a mother and child. I enjoyed the long progression in time as the reader is drawn into an intimate and emotional connection with Ellen over the years and we are reminded that in spite of hardships, sorrow and tragedy life can still go on with the support of the people that we love and the people who love us. Overall I enjoyed this read and I would recommend We Must Be Brave to those who enjoy historical fiction and who are interested in reading about the joys of the human spirit. Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Australia for the chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

[squirrelhead_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I kept hearing about this book on Goodreads so I put in my request at the library. The majority of the book is set in the WW II era, one of my preferred time periods, and it’s set in and around Upton England .We start with a busload of people evacuating Southhampton, heading to the rural town of Upton during WW II. Ellen Parr notices a small girl sleeping on the bus after everyone departs. Whose child is this? Where is her mother? Ellen gathers the little girl in her arms and makes inquiries of the women but no one claims her. The girl, Pamela, was separated from her mother during an air raid.There are some scenes that are so heartbreaking that it put me in mind of The Light Between the Oceans. I could actually quote the beginning of that book’s review for this one and it would be appropriate. ” This book is filled with sadness and loss. There are happy moments but even those are shadowed by secrets and wrong doing…”This novel spans decades but the majority focuses on the early 1940’s time period. Ellen and her husband Selwyn take in the evacuees, some children stay longer than the adults. When no one claims Pamela it’s Ellen’s hope that she and Selwyn may keep her. The circumstances are well explained in this book but I wouldn’t want to reveal spoilers.Ellen’s back story is revealed after a hundred pages and believe me, you may want the tissues handy. Actually, you just feel so bad for Ellen yet admire her inner strength. This is a fat book of 450 or so pages and I read it in 3 days time. The characters are well developed, you’d feel as if you known them. The deprivation is keenly described.Three quarters into the book it slows down a bit but I was never tempted to abandon this story. I would read more by this author.There are references to food but not often. Lots of tea, bread, Rock Cakes, a meat pie, baked onions, potato pie, rissoles and a treacle tart. One the dessert side of things I decided to make a peach cobbler. After so much deprivation I wanted excess. We even had Blanton’s bourbon with it. Now that’s decadent. (Photos on my book blog)