The Day the Flowers Died

by Rebecca May

[Kim Deister]

The Day the Flowers Died is a historical romance set in the years between WWI and WWII, telling the love story of Rebecca and Eli, a Catholic woman and a Jewish man. The story line itself was a good one, with painstaking attention paid to creating the work of fiction around historical reality. Dates and events were historically accurate, using real events as the framework for the story. That blend of truth and fiction definately lent to the historical feel of the novel and allows the reader to feel present in the time of the story. It was definately a love story, heart wrenching at times, and the story was full of all of the angst, fear and uncertainty of the time and allowed it to become more than words on the page. That being said, the extreme amount of descriptive passages sometimes became unwieldy. There were times that I became so bogged down in the descriptions of mundane things that I lost track of the story being told at the moment, causing me have to reread passages while skipping the descriptions just to regain the gist. At times it felt like the humanity and emotion of the story was stilted by the abundance of minute details. I think that really took away from what was a truly beautiful and touching love story.

Despite that, I enjoyed the characters within the story. Rebecca and Eli were the symbols of the good that still existed during that horrible time in history. Their friends and family were indicative of the varying viewpoints that tore families and friends apart. They were very well-developed and very accurate for the time period of the novel.

I think that what I liked most about the book was the historical accuracy I mentioned at the beginning of this review. It wasn't a fluffy take on the time period, but full of the anger, fear and unrest that existed. The ending of the book was in keeping with the historical accuracy of the rest of the novel, although I can't expand upon that without giving a spoiler, but it was the perfect conclusion to the novel!