Thomas H. Raddall (1903–1994)

4.5 stars

This sounds cheesy, but it's not. It's a beautiful picture, caught in time, of this province I have come to call 'home'.

Published 1950 set 1920& 21 in Nova Scotia (Halifax & Annapolis Valley) and on offshore island of Marina. (I was reading a library copy of an old first first edition. What a treat!)

Matthew Carney, Operator-in-Charge, comes ashore for his three-month leave to find his mother who gave him up to an orphanage when she married a man that was not his father. (His show more father was a Norwegian sailor who impregnated her.)

Meets and falls in love with Isabel Jardine who is working in the shipping office in Halifax. They marry on the spur of the moment & she moves to Marina, where she adjusts badly, especially as winter sets in and Matthew withdraws (we find out at the end that he knew he was going blind but did not tell her).

Isabel has an affair with 2nd in command, Greg Skane, & is shot by a jealous island girl, transported to hospital on the mainland, and after release moves to the Valley & gets a job as personal assistant to a self-made millionaire who loses it all in the recession of 1921.

Skane tracks her down just then and wants to take her away to Montreal. She has almost accepted when he plays what he feels is his trump card: that Matthew is going blind and deceived her. She realizes that Matthew loved her all along and returns to Marina. show less

A classic Maritime story. Timeless, well told tale of hard won love and redemption. Published in 1950, Raddall's The Nymph and the Lamp was the first novel he wrote set in a near contemporary period (1920s Halifax and Sable Island). The compelling story of Matthew Carney and Isabel Jardine eschews fake charm and sentiment in favour of a kind of rough-hewn realism and is surprisingly modern in its attitudes. This novel is a triumph of storytelling.

Throughout Sicily and Italy during the Second World War, members of the West Nova Scotia Regiment fought against the Germans in some very bloody battles.
This book, published in 1946 at the request of members of The West Novas, who wanted a history of The Regiment from creation to being mobilized and shipped to England for training and action during the war.
Thomas Raddall, with lots of help from the veterans who were there in Sicily or Italy, provides a wonder account of the brave men who show more answered the call to serve their country, and did so valiantly.
The West Novas, has many wonderful pictures and maps of The Regiment's progress through the Italian Campaign during WWII.
The final pages of the book, contains the names of the "Immortal Dead", members of the West Nova Scotia Regiment, who paid the ultimate price, and are lying in numerous Canadian graves throughout Italy and Sicily.
It was a wonderful read, and if you are a WWII buff, enjoy military history, or are Canadian, I highly recommend this book to you to read.
The men in Italy fought some of the most toughest battles in the Italian campaign, but with D-Day and the Allies landing on the beaches of Normandy, the West Novas, became a forgotten regiment and this story, keeps their memory and brave actions alive so we won't forget. show less

Well worth reading for its representation of the history of conflict between the French and English in Acadie/Nova Scotia. Features a deeply unlikable protagonist, but he doesn't get in the way too much, and the plot moves along nicely (the novel spans ten years).