Breakaway Books

Authored by Lucy Caldwell; Published April 2025; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️

To the extent that a novel about the events of World War II can be peaceful, These Days is that novel. It has its share of sorrow and violent attacks, but it also manages to capture the relatively quiet existence of a family in Northern Ireland. 

Audrey and Emma are two sisters on the verge of starting their adult lives when the aerial bombardment of Belfast begins. As their father works tirelessly in the local hospital, their social lives continue—if not exactly the same, still relatively vibrant. In just a few short months, Audrey gets engaged, Emma falls in love, and both lose their partners. As they ponder how to move past recent events, they must cope with the chaos that results from highly aggressive bombing of even the most residential parts of their city. 

I can’t decide if this novel left me feeling much more than an aching sadness. There are moments of shocking pain—the aftereffects of the bombs that lay waste to Belfast, the gruesome task of identifying the bodies—but they are few and far between. Much more of the novel is a description of Audrey and Emma’s family trying to continue their lives, going through air raid drills, finding ways to amuse themselves, and going on dates. This is one that I listened to rather than read, and the soft Irish lilt of the narrator, combined with the gentle pacing of the book, lulled me into a less agonized frame of mind. Audrey, Emma, and even their mom Florence describe truly awful tragedies, but they all seem a little distant, and I wonder if I didn’t feel their pain more keenly because of how much they try to run from it themselves. 

Audrey’s doomed engagement with Richard provided me with perhaps my favorite moment of the novel. When Audrey begs off from the wedding, Richard becomes incensed and insists to Audrey’s father that she surely must be having a mental break. While her father hems and haws over Audrey’s state of mind, her sister Emma boldly declares the true reason for Audrey’s actions: She simply doesn’t love him. It was heartwarming to see the one sister stand up for the other, and I wish more of the novel had been suffused with this spirit. But Emma and Audrey seem to be largely two ships passing in the night.

In These Days, as in all books on World War II, we are reminded of the horrors of war—even in as gentle a package as this. Perhaps one day we might remember for longer than a few years.