The Morning Gift – Eva Ibbotson

I am sad to say that this book has been lingering on my TBR shelf for far too long as it is the last in a pile of Ibbotson books my mom passed on to me. This pile contained four books which I have slowly but shorely been working my way through. I started last year with The Secret Countess, next I read A Song for Summer in January, followed not long after that by A Company of Swans in April, however still The Morning Gift was left waiting. Even though I have enjoyed all the other books by Ibbotson so far I always seemed to find something else to read instead of this last one, I eventually bumped it to the top of my TBR after hearing the sad news that the author had passed away. As a tribute to her I did a reflective post on her life Eva Ibbotson 1925-2010 and promised to read this book. The Morning Gift sees a return to the influence of Ibbotson’s childhood in Austria at the time of Hitler and his Nazi party’s rise to power, an influence that was also apparent in A Song for Summer which of all her books is probably my favourite so far what with all the real detail that went into the history of the story.

Little Ruth Berger has lived a comfortable and prestige life courtesy of her family being part of the Jewish Intelligentsia in Vienna since Ruth’s birth she has been surrounded by science, nature, music and art. Her family home has always been a bustling place what her father, mother, Uncle Mishak, eccentric Aunt Hilda and the musically gifted Cousin Heini who Ruth has obediently loved and served ever since he arrived, on top of all this are the scientists, researchers, explorers and other intelligentsia who come to stay as her father is an eminent professor. This beautiful life is to be turned upside down when Ruth is twenty years old with the arrival of the German army to occupy Vienna. Fearing for their only child Professor Berger and his wife send Ruth away ahead of them on a student visa to England a week or so later they leave via a different route, disaster strikes when they arrive in England to find that Ruth never even made it over the Austrian border and now no one knows what has become of her. Enter Quin Somerville a famous explorer and scientist, one of many that came to stay with Professor Berger, who when visiting Vienna learns of the sacking of his old friend Berger goes to the family home to find it empty except for Ruth. For Quin there appears to be only one way to get Ruth out of the country safely and that is marriage, once married Ruth would be put onto his British passport and so could leave Austria and enter England unhindered. When safely to England Ruth and Quin find it ever harder to annul their marriage what with keeping it secret, law impediments, accidents and unexpected feelings in the background of which the war in Europe is growing ever closer again.

Again Ibbotson did not disappoint, in The Morning Gift I found myself transported back in time to the historic city of Vienna which Jewish and many other families were forced to flee from the influence of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and then to face the immigration regulations of Britain in the 1930s as well as the prejudices of the British people themselves. Something Ibbotson would have faced herself when she moved from Austria to Scotland as a child. You could really tell that some real experience had gone into the detail, locations and story of this book, everything was utterly believable and so I was free to just let this sweeping historical romance, well just that, sweep me away! As I just mentioned there is of course an element of romance to this book which is crucial  but not all the plotline is about. Poor Ruth is left torn because almost all her life has been devoted to her beloved Heini while as the marriage to Quin is just a means to an end she fears it will still ruin the love that she shares with Heini. The predicament that Ruth finds herself in is a difficult one and one that as a naive twenty year old Ruth is not really equipped for. Ruth as a character is beautiful, loving, open, intelligent and honest and so keeping a secret as big as being married from her family is something she finds hard to cope with, her flaws are in fact that she is so loving and open, and so she can’t bear to hurt anyone’s feelings even if she is suffering herself to make them happy. One thing that really did annoy me is that Ruth is an intelligent young woman studying for an honours degree in Zoology but some times she could be such an idiot when it came to day-to-day life, and her mistakes in love were also infuriating. . . however overall her flaws only made her more endearing.

I would highly recommend this book if you are an existing fan of young adult romance/historical fiction, Ibbotson style is good enough that her romance novels can be enjoyed by the young and old a like. In The Morning Gift Ibbotson has again created a beautiful blend of history, tragedy, humour, romance, bravery and of course that highly prized happy ending. Have you read this or any of Ibbotson’s other work?