Dear Little Corpses by Nicola Upson

This is one story that caught be with the blurb essentially because it touched upon a theme that I have always been curious about. Parents sending children to villages from London to be taken care of by unknown families during WWII.

A village is preparing to receive the evacuee children. As the events unfold the village realises that they have gotten more than they bargained and planned for.

Upson's showcased the situation from every possible view - a worried mother hoping her daughter is safe from bombs, a household thinking the service of looking after evacuee children will redeem their past, anxious children clinging on to hope that they would see their parents again, and reluctant people finding themselves with children they never wanted to care for. Into this milieu of emotions, Upson weaves in a mystery that makes it a hard to put down read.

When the book is available on the market, it is a definite recommended buy.

Talk about heartbreaking.
I'll be the first to admit, I was dreading the moment I'd have to pick this book up. I've read so many disappointing stories lately, I couldn't take another. Turns out, this book is a saving grace, I raced through it. Upson's writing is so beautiful; the delicacy with which this world was forged is striking. Every single detail was perfectly integrated into the plot as to personalize each character and emotion. I've never felt so connected to a book. By constantly reading fantasy novels, I've become so accustomed to feeling disconnected from the story and characters. I'm consciously aware of the realistic differences between fantasy and sci-fi storylines and my own life. Dear Little Corpses absolutely shattered that disconnect. Like I said before, this book is devastating. I may not have cried but I certainty finished it feeling unnervingly raw and beautifully human.
Dear Little Corpses is set at the beginning of World War II, it's 1939 and Britain is evacuating the majority of it's young population to the countryside of London. Now sending thousands of children away from home with little supervision, something is bound to go wrong. Dear Little Corpses follows the devastation and heartbreak of a small Suffolk village as they wrestle with the disappearance of a young girl.
Frankly, there is not a lot else that can be said about the plotline without spoiling it, but Dear Little Corpses brings fresh anguish and an unbeatable sense of duty and love to the table. There's both overwhelming division and unity for the small village that harbors dark and old secrets. Every emotion on the page will inevitably bleed into your own heart.
A notable quote:
"You'd think so, wouldn't you, but as far as I know there isn't a cure yet for bigotry or prejudice."

As a first time reader of the Nicola Upson Josephine Tey series, I definitely feel like I popped into a party where I’m the newbie and everyone else knows each other. Although a stand-alone book, I would recommend (to myself) that I go back to the beginning of the series and get to know the characters as they deserve to be known.
Despite the lack off background, I enjoyed this mystery thoroughly. The settings, characters, and plot twists were all intriguing enough to keep me up reading late into the night. I enjoyed Upson’s unbridled use of real people. It can be tricky to incorporate living, or in this case dead, people who may have relatives and friends who take exception to the writer’s interpretation of their loved one. However, Upson had me googling historical people; and thus, expanded my literary knowledge. I will be starting from the beginning of the series to see who else I can learn while enjoying a nice murder or two.
Now about the ending…let’s talk.

I wrote this review after receiving a copy of the book from Netgalley.

This was one I struggled with, only progressed a few chapters in before deciding it wasn't for me, sorry. I'd rather be honest! I will give it 3 stars as it wasn't to do with the writing, it's just not my sort of thing.

This is the first novel I have read by author Nicola Upson, and I have a feeling it will not be my last. Although this novel is #10 in a mystery series, it can be read alone. This historical mystery takes place in 1939, in a little village near London, in preparation for war time. Children are being shuffled away from their homes by desperate parents in hopes to keep them safe, away from the immediate threats of danger in the bigger cities. Unfortunate events unfold in the midst of the chaos and it appears that the children may have been delivered right into danger instead. When a little girl goes missing, the small and close-knit village bands with detectives to put the pieces together. Have there just been a mix up of the children in all the chaos, or is something more malevolent going on? Do the people in the village know one another as well as they think?

This was a solid 3.5 stars for me. The overall story was unique and interesting with plenty of twists. The beginning was a bit confusing as many characters were introduced rather rapidly chapter by chapter but as the story unfolded it became easier to distinguish between the characters. I must say the middle did feel to drag on a bit with not much going on until a girl goes missing and then the events start unfolding rather quickly. I would say the last quarter of the book was my favorite following along with the mystery and wondering what would unfold at each chapter.

Although I did not like the pacing of the book, I did enjoy the story and the mystery and felt like I really got to k ow some of the characters.

I look forward to reading more from this author because it feels like her novels would get better and better over time.

Thank you NetGalley and Faber and Faber for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Happy reading!

September 1st, 1939. As the mass evacuation takes place across Britain, thousands of children leave London for the countryside, but when a little girl vanishes without a trace, the reality of separation becomes more urgent and more deadly for those who love her. In the chaos and uncertainty of war, Josephine struggles with the prospect of change. As a cloud of suspicion falls across the small Suffolk village she has come to love, the conflict becomes personal, and events take a dark and sinister turn. I really the enjoy the fictionalized adventures of real-life author Josephine Tey and it's often easy to see how these events may have inspired some of her stories. This story was particularly poignant and still quite a dark mystery. This is the 10th in this series and it reads well as a standalone but to learn more about the characters who make appearances it would be good to read the books before this one. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy for review.

I love Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey series and really enjoyed this one - the wartime detail was great, the Suffolk setting was really evocative and the presence of Margery Allingham as a character within the novel was a brilliant idea. After I'd finished it the penny dropped and I realised that Allingham's "Oaken Heart" book about her Suffolk village during World War Two must have figured significantly as a source for the book, so I'm off to read that now. The story itself, about evacuees and child abduction, was beautifully written, chilling, and full of experiences of ordinary people at the time.

“Dear Little Corpses” is the tenth in a series by Nicola Upson. Not having read the previous books in this series, it can be read on its own (though expect people from previous books to make appearances). This book takes place in England when children were being evacuated from London in hopes that they’d be safer away from the city. In this case, about four times as many city-dwellers (children as well as mothers of infants) descend on the village where Josephine (one of our main characters) is living. Josephine, and her companion/lover Marta, are encouraged to temporarily take a boy into their house, as another villager has taken his sister and refuse to take the boy too. The next day the village holds a village fete and it’s discovered that yesterday a young village girl went missing. A Scotland Yard policeman, and also friend of Josephine, is visiting and he takes control of the search for the missing child.

For me, this book moved slowly - we’re introduced to the characters and get them established, then the evacuation fleshes out more characters (and introduces the reader to new ones), then the fete begins - and it feels nearly to the half-way mark that the child goes missing. While some may enjoy a slow paced story with a slow paced mystery, it just didn’t work for me. I started skimming the book around the 70% mark. I did want to enjoy this book more, especially based upon the premise, but it just didn’t tick the boxes for me, sadly.