![]() By the time I finally did, after being in Prague in 1985 and Berlin in 1996 for so long, I had completely lost track of what was happening back in Paris today. I don’t even know if this entire timeline was really necessary, it did seem to pull me out of the story and it was a long time before I went back to Paris in the present day. Much of the way she conducted herself didn’t sit well with me at all. I did struggle with this section, and while it shed a bit of light on the other two sections in terms of filling in some of the gaps and linking up the past with the present, I actually really didn’t like the way that Laure, the main character, acted within this timeline. The blurb on the back gives an indication that there are two timelines: Paris in the present day and Prague in 1985, however, there is also another timeline that begins around about the halfway mark through the novel, which is really quite a long way in for a new timeline to begin. The other thing that I found which didn’t really work was the multiple timelines. This certainly pulled me out of the story a fair bit. And while dialogue can sometimes be a really good way for an author to slip in those historical facts that they feel are important to their story, some of the conversations within this novel had exact dates and events being listed by verbatim in a way that was very unnatural and not in any way resembling a normal conversation that you may have with somebody over dinner or in passing, or, to be perfectly honest, in any way at all. There were a lot of conversations between people that were nothing more than passages of historical fact dumping, leading to a distinct lack of the type of natural exchange that you should have with dialogue. Overall, I think I this novel had, for me, a rather clinical and slightly detached narrative. I did have quite high hopes for this novel as I have been doing a lot of reading around the Cold War era, as you might have noticed, and this one was next on my radar to fit in with that theme. It’s not even that long either, only 400 pages, but it’s kind of become the book that never ends which unfortunately hasn’t worked in its favour. I seem to have inadvertently picked the busiest fortnight of my whole year in which to read this novel and it’s actually taken me almost the whole fortnight to read it, which is normally unheard of for me. It is only years later, having created the museum, that Laure can finally face up to her past and celebrate the passionate love which has directed her life. Her love for him will have terrible and unforeseen consequences. Until, that is, she meets a young dissident musician. Laure cannot begin to comprehend the dark, political currents that run beneath the surface of this communist city. But life behind the Iron Curtain is a complex thing: drab and grey yet charged with danger. Recovering from the sudden death of her father, Laure flees to Prague. Laure, the owner and curator, has also hidden artefacts from her own painful youth amongst the objects on display. The museum is a place where people come to speak to the ghosts of the past and, sometimes, to lay them to rest. And each represent a moment of grief or terrible betrayal. Every object in the museum has been donated – a cake tin, a wedding veil, a baby’s shoe. ![]() The Museum of Broken Promises is a place of wonder and sadness, hope and loss. The Museum of Broken Promises is a beautiful, evocative love story and heart-breaking journey in to a long-buried past. ![]() The stunning new novel from bestselling Elizabeth Buchan. ![]() The Museum of Broken Promises… About the Book:
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