Blog Tour: The Things We Did For Love By Natasha Farrant, review and a post written by a major character.

Hello, Today see's 'The Things We Did For Love' blog tour taking a pit stop at Dark Readers.
I really enjoyed this novel it's one of a kind and I was overjoyed to see we were added to the tour.

Firstly, i'd like to take a few moments to mention 'The Things We Did For Love writing competition which launched on THE Spark at the beginning of the tour. The link to the competition is  http://www.facebook.com/thesparkpage?sk=app_128953167177144. Anyone who enters has the chance of winning an ipad or the runner up prize of an e-reader. So what are you waiting for.

Name: The Things We Did For Love

Author: Natasha Farrant
UK Publishers: Faber
UK Release Date:

Summary: France: February, 1944.
As war rages in Europe, teenagers Luc and Arianne fall passionately in love. But German forces are closing in and Luc, desperate to atone for his family's past, is drawn into the dangerous world of the Resistance. Arianne will do almost anything to keep him safe, but someone else is secretly in love with her - someone who will stop at nothing to get rid of his rival...

Review: I'm not usually one for wartime based novels but 'The Things We Did For Love' has completely changed my opinion.
My grandparents survived the war and at school I was always interested in this time. My grandad was an evacuee, he was sent off to the countryside where he would be safe.
He even wrote about his experiences for us to take to school, it was really interesting to read and obviously for me it was really emotional as it's about my grandad.
It was clearly a difficult time to be separated from his family but he was safe. Through out the book I often wondered if I'd have been as strong as Arianne, if I'd have been alive in the 1940s.
At such a young age she's acting like a young woman. In reading this novel you're taken on a rollercoaster ride through many emotions. As a reader you can feel her pain, joy, passion and sadness.This is Natasha Farrant's first YA novel and it centres around the love story of Arianne and Luc.
I love that some of the novel is past and some present by the mysterious person telling us the story. (I didn't expect it to be who it is. I shant spoil for you.)
The imagery is so vivid it makes me feel like I'm actually in the novel, feeling the rollercoaster of emotions that Arianne, Luc, Romy, Solange and Teresa Belleville are feeling.
I immediately loved Arianne although the poor girl can be so naïve, she's just too kind.
Arianne and Luc are the perfect couple but is there really a perfect love and a perfect life?
What I loved about this novel was how real it is.
Natasha doesn't shy away from the brutality of war and how it changes people.
Some for the better some worse.
Luc is your ideal leading man but I'm not completely bowled over with love for him.
However, Luc and Arianne's love is very passionate and fiesty.
There are strong messages of love, passion, jealousy and betrayal within this novel.
As always there is an impending love triangle which results to a huge betrayal.
I also enjoyed Natasha's foreword at the end explaining just how much research went into explaining how life really was back in the 1940s.
I would definitely recommend this wartime based love story.

This is Natasha's debut novel and I for one cannot wait to see what she does next.

Now for the lovely post from one of my fave characters in this novel Solange...

THE DAY THEY CROSSED THE LINE



When the German army defeated the French in 1940, France was cut in half. The North and coasts fell under German control. This was the Occupied Zone. The South was administered by a puppet government, French in name, and was the Free Zone. Following Allied landings in North Africa on November 8th, 1942, the German army crossed the demarcation line between the two zones and the whole of France was occupied.


They came on Armistice Day. November 11th, the day the treaty was signed at Versailles to end the last war.


November 11th 1918: the Great War ended.


November 11th 1942: our war began.


When France was two countries we hardly ever saw any Germans. We heard a lot of stories, of course. For a start the village was twice the size it had been before the war. We had refugees from all over – from the borders, Alsace and Lorraine, which the Germans always claimed were theirs, from Paris, from the North. They all told the same tales of how they had walked for days, pushing everything they could take into prams and wheelbarrows, while German planes – Stukas – machine-gunned them from the sky. We heard that people were taken away in the night and never seen again, that people were shot and tortured and hung and that they were starving, but to be honest it didn’t really register, not with me. I mean, you can’t understand what hungry means until you’ve been without yourself, right? And until November 11th 1942, we never really went without. So between June 1940, when France was cut in two by the victorious Germans, and November 1942 when they decided they’d rather have the whole country, thank you very much, I just got on with doing what every girl my age does. I went to school. I played with my friends. I grew boobs and got my period, I kissed boys for a dare.


And then the Allies landed in North Africa. And three days later the Germans arrived.


There were so many of them, and they were so - perfect. They rolled into town in their armoured trucks, down the main street and over the tramlines, with their smart grey uniforms and their gleaming boots and their neat blond hair, a horrible band playing their horrible martial music. We ran out into the streets. We couldn’t help it. Papa said we should stay indoors. He said, “Solange, you must not dignify their arrival with your presence,” but I told him that good or bad, it was a historic occasion, right? And there’s something about a parade. It doesn’t feel quite real, and however horrible the music, it gets to you, I mean you start tapping your foot, and the kids run around trying to get a better look, and even though the grown-ups all look like they’re at a funeral it’s difficult not to notice how good-looking some of the soldiers are. Until they park their tanks in front of the mairie, that is, and their leader gets out surrounded by his flunkeys, and Mayor Jarvis is all stiff and has to salute even though he’s shaking so hard he can hardly raise his hand, and they make him go inside and take down the French flag.


That’s when you realise. All your life you’ve been a part of something you’ve taken completely for granted. “Oh yeah,” you think. “France. That used to be my country.” And even though I’d never thought about it like that, when they took down that flag, I cried.


On the 11 November 1942, the swastika flew over the town hall, and it stayed there until it burned down along with the rest of the village on 10 June 1944.


I swear when I saw that black and red flag flying over the mairie, I knew they would get us in the end. Even though we didn’t see them for another year and a half, even though they left us alone. And I was right, wasn’t I? They did get us.


Don’t think I died easily. I wasn’t brave. I was scared the first time they came. But when they came back, I was bloody terrified.