Reflections

Could not put this down!After making disastrous romantic choices an impoverished and unpretentious young seamstress from Madrid is forced to metamorphose herself completely. First Sira Quiroga transforms herself into a high-end haute couture dress designer in Teutan, a cosmopolitan palm tree filled city just across the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco, in order to pay off debts she and her lover ran up before he stole her inheritance and fled. It's a façade Sira is never completely at ease in. Later, she becomes an unlikely but effective spy, supplying British authorities with information about her German clients in this historically fascinating, sensually descriptive story that transported me back to 1920's-30's Spain, Morocco and Portugal, the era of Spain's civil war and Hitler's European ascent.The Time In Between is apparently a best seller in Europe, and author Maria Duenas has scholarly credentials. It's a long novel, over 600 pages, and though it's not fast paced I rarely wanted the story to hurry along because its ride is so seductive and intriguing. Rosalinda Fox, one of the story's most interesting characters, was a real person and has written her own memoir of the time that I'd love to read, but I've been unable to locate The Grass and The Asphalt anywhere. The best books always seem to lead to more reading, and The Time In Between has piqued my interest in pre-WWII era Spain, Portugal and North Africa enough that I'll be searching for anything I can find about that time.