The One I Was - Softcover

Graham, Eliza

4.08

7,091 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1477829318 ISBN 13: 9781477829318

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing, 2015

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Restless, troubled Rosamond Hunter has spent most of her life running away from the past, filled with guilt about her involuntary role in her mother’s death. When her nursing job brings her back to Fairfleet, her childhood home, to care for an elderly refugee, she is forced to confront the ghosts that have haunted her for so long.

Her patient, Benny Gault, first came to Fairfleet, England, in 1939, having fled Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train.

As his health fails, he and Rosamond begin to confide in each other. At first their tentative friendship revolves around the love they both shared for Rosamond’s glamorous grandmother, Harriet, but as their trust in each other grows, guilty secrets are exposed and history is turned on its head.

From the acclaimed author of Playing with the Moon and Restitution comes a beautiful and haunting tale of friendship, redemption and forgiveness across generations.

Revised edition: This edition of The One I Was includes editorial revisions.

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Review:

It's quite a while since I read a book with quite so much meat on its bones...
The Bookbag

'Eliza Graham crafts a poignant story of identity and legacy in THE ONE I WAS, posing the question of how much past events define us, and whether we can ever break free of our damaged selves to truly start anew. In this novel as in life, there are no pat answers. Beautifully done.' Kristina Riggle, author of Real Life and Liars and The Whole Golden World.

A haunting and intricate tale ... The plot is constructed with such watchmaker's precision that to refer to any aspect of it trails a spoiler and violates the unity of the whole. Suffice it to say that the book is engaging, compelling and dramatic from the first page. It has some aspects of a psychological thriller; in other ways a doomed romance; and from another angle an involving historical novel. Readers of any of these genres will enjoy this book. If the intricacy of the story is remarkable, it never overwhelms the beautifully drawn characters. By Tim Stretton-Amazon.co.uk.

About the Author:

Eliza Graham spent her biology lessons sitting at the back of the classroom, reading Jean Plaidy novels behind her textbooks. In English and history, however, she sat right at the front, hanging on to every word. At home she read books while getting dressed and cleaning her teeth, and during school holidays she visited the public library several times a day.

At Oxford University she read English literature on a course that regarded anything written after about 1930 as too modern to be included. She retains a love of Victorian novels and the poetry of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

Eliza’s first novel, Playing with the Moon, was longlisted for Richard & Judy’s Summer Read category and named one of the World Book Day 2007 ‘Books to Talk About.’

Find out more about Eliza on her website, elizagraham.co.uk, and follow her on Twitter @Eliza_Graham.

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