Mind the gap between youth’s pedestal and looming adulthood.

Two years have passed since Anneliese and Isabel braved the bombardment of the Blitz. Risks are resumed and revelations rattle as the past begins to rear its ugly head. Suffering sends Isabel on downward spirals; Anneliese falls victim to society’s expectations. Skeletons come tumbling from Susanna’s closet and for some the sex-and-death divide grows thinner.

Spying on the escapades of the sororal van der Holts, The Crooked Little Pieces: Volume 2 invites you to encounter more of Anneliese and Isabel than they know of themselves. Self-recognition is discomfiting. And we have only just begun.

My Review

I finished the review of volume one of The Crooked Little Pieces with this:

‘…. it’s very different. Don’t expect straightforward historical fiction. It’s more about emotions and the relationship between two women, who even though they are twins are disparate and diverse. As we leave them amidst world war two, I look forward to the next instalment in this fascinating tale.’

And I couldn’t wait for the second instalment of this brilliant story. Then it arrived and I wasn’t disappointed. We continue to follow the sisters two years on. The war is over. Isabel is married to Steven, whose tastes in the bedroom are both weird and dangerous. Isabel is accepting but her sister Anneliese is worried and rightly so. But Isabel wants a baby so badly that she is prepared to put up with anything.

Eventually she falls pregnant – the next part of the book is very emotional – and is convinced she is expecting a girl. She wants to call her Amelita after Italian soprano Amelita Galli-Curci who was popular in the mid 20th century. I only mention this because it’s a name I have not heard since childhood – my late mother was a huge fan and we had her LPs at home.

In the meantime, Anneliese is still finding it hard to practice as a psychiatrist – not a career choice deemed seemly for women in the 1940s. She still sees her own psychiatrist Susanna (this is a necessity for anyone working in mental health and still is as far as I know though today it would be called counselling), but seems to spend most of the time arguing with her. Susanna’s past is also beginning to emerge and much of it is not pretty.

Unlike Isabel, Anneliese has no interest in relationships, sex or babies. She is only interested in her career, but often questions her ability to relate to her patients.

Another fabulous instalment in the story of these two fascinating women and I can’t wait for volume three.

Many thanks to the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Sophia Lambton became a professional classical music critic at the age of seventeen when she began writing for Musical Opinion, Britain’s oldest music magazine. Since then she has contributed to The Guardian, Bachtrack, musicOMH, BroadwayWorld, BBC Music Magazine and OperaWire, and conducted operatic research around the world for a non-fiction work set to be published in 2023. Crepuscular Musings – her recently spawned cultural Substack – provides vivid explorations of tv and cinema together with reviews of operas, concerts and recitals at sophialambton.substack.com.

The Crooked Little Pieces is her first literary saga. This is volume 2. She lives in London.