In the Shadow of War
One war may be over, but their fight for survival continues…
For sisters Etta, Jessie and Celie Fry, the Great War and the hardships of the years that followed have taken a heavy toll.
Determined to leave her painful past behind her, Etta heads to the bright lights of Hollywood whilst Jessie, determined to train as a doctor and use her skills to help others, is hampered by the men who dominate her profession. On the vast, empty plains of the Canadian prairies, Celie and her small family stand on the brink of losing everything.
As whispers of a new war make their way to each sister, each must face the possibility of the unthinkable happening again…
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In the Shadow of War by Adrienne Chinn
Excerpt
The following excerpt from In the Shadow of War, takes place in February 1933 in Hollywood, California, where youngest Fry sister, Etta Fry Marinetti, has just had an audition for a part in the latest Marx Brothers movie. She’d moved out to Los Angeles from her mother, Christina’s, house in London to rekindle a romance with an American journalist she’d met in Paris in the 1920s, and pursue a career as an actress, something she’s finding more difficult than she’d anticipated.
Etta steps out of the Paramount Pictures office building and leans against the wall as her heart pounds against her ribs. She takes a deep breath and lights a cigarette. She inhales, savouring the acrid taste of smoke and tobacco, and watches the construction crew hammer and saw the façade of an English manor house into life in the vast yard as a parade of chorus girls and cowboys filters past.
Finally. She’s lost count of the auditions she’s been on since she’d arrived in Hollywood in November. Her mother’s money is running out, and she needs this job, or she’ll have to ask for more, which is a terrible nuisance. She hates to have to blackmail her mother, but, really, what choice does she have? Her mother has money, and she has her mother’s secret. It is an even trade. Damn Paolo Marinetti for contesting Carlo’s will in the Italian courts! He’s made things ever so disagreeable!
She’d never thought it would be so difficult to get noticed in Hollywood. She’d always been so assured of her ability to capture the attention of the less-favoured. But here she is just another girl looking for a break. If anyone finds out she’s almost forty, she’ll be dead in this town. And then what? Back to stultifying teas at her mother’s or painting lemons on Capri? Over her dead body.
She stubs out the cigarette butt under her shoe and waits as a cluster of mounted cowboys passes by. At least things have worked out with CJ. He’d had her worried when she’d first arrived, being so awfully cold and distant. She smiles as she remembers the night she’d finally won him back. It had taken all her wiles, helped by a new silk peignoir from Bullocks Wilshire, and several dry martinis. He’d succumbed, of course. She’d never really doubted that he would. Of course, it had been perfectly natural for him to have been upset about her going back to Carlo all those years ago. But really, how could she not? Carlo was her husband. But, now, Carlo is dead and she has a life to live, and she’s decided she’s going to live it here in Hollywood with CJ.
She opens her handbag and slips out a silver flask. Unscrewing the cap, she takes a deep swallow, shivering as the gin burns its way down her throat.
‘Ah, a kindred spirit. Always thought the olive was a waste of time myself.’
Etta coughs and turns around to see the familiar thick black moustache and eyebrows of Groucho Marx. He pulls a cigar out of his breast pocket. ‘Mind if I don’t smoke?’
‘Yes, no. Uh—’
He stuffs the cigar back into his pocket. ‘Another beautiful girl struck dumb. Is it the moustache or the eyebrows? Or maybe the glasses? Girls don’t make passes at boys who wear glasses.’
Etta screws the top back onto the flask and drops it back into her handbag. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Marx. I know I shouldn’t have—’
‘If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that, I’d be as rich as Rockefeller.’
Etta laughs. ‘It’s the second time I’ve heard that today.’
‘What? Is somebody stealing my jokes? How dare they!’
Etta glances at her handbag. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you, Mr Marx? I need this job on your picture. The truth is, I’m awfully nervous. They told me I had to learn to speak like an American now that they’re making talkies or I’d never make it in the pictures.’
‘And they tell me I’m supposed to make people laugh. Harpo says if I keep at it, I might manage it one day.’
Etta giggles. ‘Oh, you always make me laugh, Mr Marx.’
He wiggles his wire-rimmed glasses with his finger. ‘Then my work here is done.’ He heads down the steps. At the bottom he turns around and nods at Etta’s handbag. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, drinking gin like that is a waste of a good martini.’
Adrienne Chinn was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, grew up in Quebec, and eventually made her way to London, England after a career as a journalist. In England she worked as a TV and film researcher before embarking on a career as an interior designer, lecturer, and writer. When not up a ladder or at the computer writing, she often can be found rummaging through flea markets or haggling in the Marrakech souk. Her second novel, The English Wife -- a timeslip story set in World War II England and contemporary Newfoundland -- was published in June 2020 and has become an international bestseller. Her debut novel, The Lost Letter , was published by Avon Books UK in 2019.Love in a Time of War , the first in a series of four books in The Three Fry Sisters series, was published in February 2022. The second in the series, The Paris Sister , was published in February 2023, and the third book in the series, In the Shadow of War, was published in March 2024.
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