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The Silent Stars Go By

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A miraculous new Christmas story from award-winning author Sally Nicholls about hope and heartbreak, wartime romance and the power of love.

17-year-old Margot Allan was a respectable vicar’s daughter and madly in love with her fiancé, Harry. But when Harry was reported missing in action from the Western Front, and Margot realised she was expecting his child, there was only one solution she and her family could think of in order to keep that respectability. She gave up James, her baby son, to be adopted by her parents and brought up as her younger brother.

Now two years later the whole family is gathering at the vicarage for Christmas. It’s heartbreaking for Margot being so close to James but unable to tell him who he really is. But on top of that, Harry is also back in the village. Released from captivity in Germany and recuperated from illness, he’s come home and wants answers. Why has Margot seemingly broken off their engagement and not replied to his letters? Margot knows she owes him an explanation. But can she really tell him the truth about James?

©2020 Sally Nicholls (P)2020 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Difficult Situations Family & Relationships Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Winter Christmas Heartfelt

Critic reviews

"A gorgeous, festive treat of a story about family, lost loves and finding yourself again after tragedy. Sally Nicholls is brilliant: her writing reads like silk." (Emma Carroll, author of Letters from the Lighthouse)

"Beautiful writing about a loving, troubled, real family - this is a book to settle down for the day with." (Holly Webb)
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Most relevant
The tale of love, sacrifice, duty, fear and family. When Margo finds herself pregnant with her fiancé missing in action during the Great War, her family take her son as their own. When Harry comes back two years later, Margo has to find a way to tell him. This is their story but it is also the story of unmarried mothers and the collective guilt, judgement and sacrifice that was forced on them by the rules their society had. It is the story of soldiers who returned from the war with many different experiences, not just one narrative, and of how those narratives never really matched what those to whom they returned had been expecting. I really hope young people still read this kind of story for it is worth knowing how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

Moving historical fiction

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