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by Frances Liardet
Spanning the sweep of the twentieth century, We Must Be Brave explores the fierce love that we feel for our children and the power of that love to endure. Beyond distance, beyond time, beyond life itself.
One woman. One little girl. The war that changed everything.
December 1940. In the disorderly evacuation of Southampton, England, newly married Ellen Parr finds a small child asleep on the backseat of an empty bus. No one knows who little Pamela is.
Ellen professed not to want children with her older husband, and when she takes Pamela into her home and rapidly into her heart, she discovers that this is true: Ellen doesn't want children. She wants only Pamela. Three golden years pass as the Second World War rages on. Then one day Pamela is taken away, screaming. Ellen is no stranger to sorrow, but when she returns to the quiet village life she's long lived, she finds herself asking: In a world changed by war, is it fair to wish for an unchanged heart?
In the spirit of We Were the Lucky Ones and The Nightingale, here is a novel about courage and kindness, hardship and friendship, and the astonishing power of love.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/18/2025)
We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet, reading this for one of my book clubs. Next will be The Diary of Anne Frank for my Banned Book club.
-Paula_Walters
"Starred Review. Intense passion is concealed behind a facade of British modesty in this … blazing story of hearts wounded and restored." - Kirkus
"Moving... Readers will be captivated by Ellen's story, which is bolstered by a swift plot and characters who realistically and memorably grow." - Publishers Weekly
"Recommended for historical fiction fans seeking slow-paced, emotional reads." - Library Journal
"Deeply moving... A stunningly accurate portrayal of the all-encompassing depth of a mother's love (whether she's the biological mother or not). Read it and weep." - AARP Magazine
"Be prepared to surrender - to Liardet's gorgeous prose, her haunting storyline, and the question that will lodge in your heart long after you've finished:What would I have done? For anyone who has ever loved a child, this stirring debut will work its way indelibly into the folds of your memory, and of your heart." - Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones
"Vividly portrayed... Liardet reminds us that mother-daughter love can arise from thrown-together hearts during the cruelest rubble of war. Through every scene, we see the tattered socks, the doll faces, the honey-smells of baby skin, but mostly we feel the strength and endurance of heart-crushing love. The war and weather-etched faces and life-long relationships of the villagers show us that real family has little to do with worn down definitions. This is a powerful story that proves how love itself requires courage." - Delia Owens, New York Times bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing
"This is storytelling at its best. Wise, generous and captivating." - Sarah Winman, author of Tin Man
"We Must Be Brave is a wonderful novel. A beautifully written story of love and loss, with thoughtfully crafted characters and so much to think about long after you've finished reading it. It is one of those novels you can talk about for hours - the perfect book club read." - AJ Pearce, author of Dear Mrs. Bird
"A beautifully written story that explores love, loss, resilience, and the bonds of motherhood over the course of the 20th century. A sweeping, heartfelt novel about what it means to truly love a child." – Jillian Cantor, author of The Lost Letter and In Another Time
This information about We Must Be Brave was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Frances Liardet is a child of the children of the Second World War. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and studied Arabic at Oxford before traveling to Cairo to work as a translator. She currently lives in Somerset, England, with her husband and daughter, and helps to run a summer writing session called Bootcamp. We Must Be Brave is her American debut.
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