Have You Read? #8

I have been in fictitious Bottlebay, Maine this weekend with eleven-year-old Felicity Bathburn Budwig. She is the heroine in Phoebe Stone's latest novel, The Romeo and Juliet Code. Set in 1941 when many Londoners sent their children to the countryside for safekeeping, the story begins with Felicity's Danny and Winnie (as she calls her dad and mum) dropping her off at her Uncle Gideon's house on the ocean.

Though polite and respectful, Fliss, as she is soon nicknamed by her uncle, Aunt Miami, and The Gran, observes the goings-on in the Bathburn home with trepidation. Aunt Miami is constantly spouting lines from Romeo and Juliet. Uncle Gideon (also her 6th grade teacher) covets letters from Portugal that she is certain were written by her Danny. The Gran sews, bakes, and whispers when she thinks Fliss is not hiding behind the corner or the curtains. And then there's Captain Derek whom she does not see for weeks. Expecting to see an adult in the usually locked upstairs room, Fliss is surprised to see a boy of her age who is recuperating from the polio virus. The two become fast friends as they try to decipher the codes in those mysterious letters.

Life is never what it seems to outsiders, and Fliss gradually learns the secrets of the Bathburns and her own Danny and Winnie as the war rages forward in Europe. Resolution does not come in a happy sort of way, but Fliss does learn some of those secrets and come to terms with Bathburn life. I have added her voice to my list of favorite narrators. "And so it was on that very first miserable, wet morning in Bottlebay, Maine, USA, that I took a bit of The Gran's secret almond and honey muffins. And I had to close my eyes afterwards, to keep my British balance."