The history of antisemitism in Toronto in the years leading up to Word War II was new and surprising to me, and made all too real by Graham. This historical fiction revolves around Mollie and Max, good friends from childhood even though they come from an Irish family and a Jewish family. As they become adults in 1933 they realize their feelings for each other have become romantic in spite of their awareness that their families would never allow a relationship. The division becomes more intense following a riot caused by a Swastika Club when tragic injuries are caused, both physical and emotional. The novel resumes in 1939, and Mollie and Max, already estranged, are further distanced by the War and Max's enlistment. Graham's descriptions of the white supremacist movement, and then the brutality of the prisoner of war camps in China and Japan, make for disturbing and powerful reading. The resolution of this story may seem somewhat facile, but it balances out some of the preceding devastation.

This is a fantastic book about love and war. This takes place during the great depression in Toronto. There are two wonderful families who were across the street from each other. One family the Dreyfus family was Jewish. The brother and sister (Hannah and Max), were very close. Max was studying to become a doctor and Hannah wanted to be married and have children. The Ryan's were Protestants. There were four brothers and the only daughter Molly. Molly and Hannah were like sisters and Richie, Jimmy, and Max were best friends. Richie and Max were best friends. When the war broke out in Germany, the local newspapers started reporting the building antisemitism and spreading every day. Young boys became bullies towards the Jews. Richie joined a group of four boys that started pushing Jewish people and started picking on Max. Molly stood up for Max. They were falling in love even though it was forbidden. Japan got involved with the war and Britain asked the Royal Canadian army to send men over to fight. Between the War and the depression families could barely make ends meet. A fight between the Dreyfus family and the Ryan's destroyed the relationship of the two families for many years. I couldn't put this book down and look forward to reading more books by Genevieve Graham.

Awesome! This book is a page turner from the beginning. The characters are realistic and endearing. The book deals with the historical history of Canada before and leading up to WWII. There is a greater understanding of what happened in Hong Kong to the Canadian Alliance. The tragedies of war are offensive. The book deals with those tragedies. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction and romance.

An historical fiction novel about two families, The Ryans and The Dreyfuses. Two families that at the turn of WWII started to question their loyalty to each other. Molly Ryan, a Protestant, and Hannah Dreyfus, a Jew, have been best friends forever. Ritchie and Max, their brothers, are also best friends. As they've gotten older, Molly and Max are drawn toward each other, despite a relationship being out of the question.

Everything changes during the Christie Pits Riot, a little known true story that takes place in Toronto in 1933. This fight leads to Molly's father being severely injured and putting a strain on both families. Over the next couple years the friendships become very strained. They continue to see each other in town, but lead very separate lives. Then WWII begins and the brothers from both families join in the Canadian military effort.

As the war goes on, Molly takes a job as a reporter where she focuses her stories on the men killed in battle or held at POW camps. As she continues to research these camps, she finds something that changes her life forever.

Graham has an amazing way with words. In her telling of the story, she shifts between Molly and Max for quite different perspectives of the same events. I had also never heard of some of the battles that had taken place on the Canadian side during WWII, so I found this quite educational as well as entertaining.

Thank You to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this advanced e-galley.

This was such an amazing story! I was captivated from the first page! Heartbreaking at times but yet I couldn’t put it down! Highly highly recommend!

This is a heartbreaking account of anti-semitism in Canada during the Great Depression and heroism by Canadian soldiers in Hong Kong during WWII. It erupts into a bloody riot in August 1933, spreading across the city, injuring many and dividing families, friends and neighbors. This part of Canadian history, while little known, was part of the focus of this story. The riot spread across Toronto and in its upheaval dissected friends and families. From the sorrowful anti-Semitism in 1930's Toronto and a journey of Canadian soldiers who were sent into WWII we are witnessing an amazing story, written by an amazing author. My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Letters Across The Sea is the second historical fiction novel I have read by Genevieve Graham. The first was The Forgotten Home Child, which I enjoyed just as much as I did this upcoming release. While Graham’s characters are Canadian through and through, the stories they tell are universal.

The Dreyfus and Ryan families are neighbors in Toronto. One family is Jewish, the other Protestant. Even so, Hannah Dreyfus and Molly Ryan are best friends. Their older brothers, Max and Richie, had been very close before Max left for college. The Great Depression impacted the Ryan family to the point their children had to drop out of school to work. When Max returns from college, he sees Molly in a new light, and a spark grows between the two. He encourages Molly to attend night school so she can become the journalist she wants to be. However, they both know their love is forbidden for religious reasons.

The friendship between the two families is torn apart when the Christie Pits Riot occurs in Toronto on August 16, 1933. This riot was a clash between the members of Swastika Clubs and the Jews, who were aided by Italian immigrants. The feelings of anti-Semitism were fueled in part by prejudicial news reporting by one of the Toronto papers. Only six years later, these groups who fought against each other, find themselves fighting during World War II. All of Molly’s brothers join the war effort. The former friends, Max and Richie are sent to Hong Kong in the same company just before it was attacked by the Japanese. The Battle of Hong Kong is known as the only battle in World War II that was a 100% failure by the allies.

Molly fulfills her dream of becoming a reporter. When the war is over, she begins writing stories about the horrors of POW camps. If you read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, you have a sense of the atrocities committed by Japan during the war. The novel also paints a realistic picture of the post-traumatic stress suffered by many of the soldiers upon their return home.

5-Stars. Book club recommended. There are great discussion questions included that cover prejudice against immigrates, anti-Semitism, the power of news reporting, PTSD, and other topics that unfortunately are still current today. There are also great questions regarding friendships, forgiveness, and the power of love.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for my advanced reader copy. The expected publication day is April 27, 2021.

Ms. Graham has written a very powerful story about a part of WWII of which I've never heard--how WWII affected sentiment in Canada. In this well-researched novel, Ms. Graham writes about the Great Depression, the Recession, WWII--all moments that contribute to stresses among citizens.

Molly and Hannah have been best friends forever, having grown up in the same neighborhood. Hannah's family is Jewish and everything changes when WWII's anti-Jewish sentiments come to Canada. Can Molly and Hannah's friendship survive? Moreover, Molly has had a crush on Max, Hannah's brother, since she was a young girl. But everything changes when Max is killed fighting against the Nazis.

By the time the war is over, Molly is working her dream job as a journalist and is engaged to a fellow journalist. While interviewing former prisoners of war, she hears a voice she would recognize anywhere. And her life changes again. Whose voice changes the whole direction of her life?

I highly recommend this book for those who love well-researched historical fiction!

Letters Across the Sea by Genevieve Graham

This book is a perfect YA read for those looking for an understanding of Canada’s role in World War II. It’s an easy story, simply written with a predictable ending.

The Ryan and Dreyfus families are neighbors in a multicultural neighborhood in Toronto, Canada. The children are good friends until anti-Semitic tensions arise. The “boys” in both families join the military (though if you fight in a war, you are no longer a “boy,” in my opinion), and suffer the usual wounds and horrors of all wars. Who gets injured? Who returns?

Main character Molly Ryan, and her friend, Hannah Dreyfus, fear for their brothers, but their lives go on back home. Of special interest to Molly is Hannah’s brother Max, her life-long secret crush.

The story captures wartime life for the young fighters and the worried families left behind. I think the ending was meant to surprise the reader, though I feel it came off as not unexpected. Three stars from this reviewer.

Thank you to Net Galley, Simon & Schuster and Genevieve Graham for this Advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
This is an amazing, heartbreaking, beautiful story, be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster you will find yourself on. Story begins during the depression thru to the end of WWII. This is Molly & Max's story, but also families and others too.
Molly is a Protestant Irish girl, Max and his sister are her neighbors and best friends. Max's family is Jewish. This book opens your eyes to things most of us did not realize was going on to this extent on this side of the Atlantic. History they never covered in school.Truly powerful story of love, family and friendship

Family, Friends and a War

We read a lot about the war in Europe and some about it in the U.S.A. This is a story about how WWII touched Canada. It speaks of many things and all of them affected family and friends. Before the war anti Semitism became high in some places in Canada. There were even clubs called Swastika Clubs there were about 4000 badge carrying members of this club in and around Toronto Canada.

In 1933 Approximately 2000 spectators were at a ballgame. After the ballgame a large blanket with a black swastika was displayed and the Christie Pits Riot was born. This riot became ten thousand people with pipes, bricks and baseball bats.

The story is about two families the Dreyfus family who are Jewish. This family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Dreyfus, Max and Hannah. The second family is a Protestant family Mr. And Mrs. Ryan, Richie, Jimmy, Molly and Liam. The setting starts during the depression and goes through the end of WWII. The families are best friends until the anti Semitism starts than Mr. Ryan (a police officer and an Orangeman) starts telling his family to find other friends because of it. During the Christie Pits riot Mr. Ryan catches Max kissing Molly and starts beating Max then a brick hits him on the head. The Ryan family blames the Dreyfus family for throwing the brick and they are no longer allowed to be friends.

The boys all go off to war to fight and those left behind can do nothing but hope they are okay. Some of them are injured and some do not return. The book tells the sad story of these soldiers and their families. How they suffered during the war. After Germany surrendered most people started to forget about the war and move on , but the ones fighting were still fighting in the Pacific in Hong Kong and Normandy. Some were captured and taken to Japanese prison camps which is written about in the book as Molly becomes a reporter and reports on this after the war.

It's a story of hard times and survival during the depression and then during the war for both the soldiers and the families. Eventually a reconciliation of the two families and friendship once again.
It really does tell a lot of history of that time and of the times in Toronto Canada during those times. It was a very good book, I enjoyed reading it, learned a lot and I would recommend it.

Thanks to Genevieve Graham, Simon and Schuster Canada, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of the book. My review and opinions are totally my own.

Wow, oh wow!! This book is EVERYTHING I love in a book! I read it in one day, I couldn’t put it down! (Sorry, family!)
Some people love beach reads, some people love suspense. Me? I love WWII books with a heart wrenching love story, and this had all kinds of love (friendship, family, romantic) in it and all kinds of heart break. Unputdownable!
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for the advanced copy.

Oh my stars I loved this book! It was a story so well told about a battle that you don’t hear about as much. And being based in Toronto and the surrounding cities, made it even better for me-I have walked on those same streets and knew the places she referred to, which made it even more real for me.
This is a historical fiction page turner which primarily takes place in Toronto and Hong Kong. It spans from 1933-1945 and experiences of the POW camps in Germany, Japan and Ontario.
Molly and her Protestant family are trying to survive during the Great Depression and their family is best friends with Max’s family, who are Jewish, despite the fact that anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi movements were running rampant. Max is strong in his beliefs to fight for his country, and Molly is a journalist covering the wars and the effects on the soldiers. As they grow older and develop feelings for each other, their families are against it because of the prejudice they would suffer, and during the Christie Pits Riots, trauma happens and it changes both their families forever. Max goes off to war and Molly, thinking he’s dead after not replying to any of her letters, moves on and gets engaged. Until one night, at a correspondent event, Molly comes face to face with Max again and they realize that their love never died and they have to be together no matter what.
I adored this story from beginning to end and can’t recommend it enough.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for this Arc in exchange for my review.

Letters Across The Sea
Genevieve Graham


Genevieve Graham’s latest novel set during WWII is a historical gem about the atrocities of war, loss, hope survival and redemption.
As always Genevieve entertains and educates her readers with her latest insightful novel, Letters Across The Sea, bringing some little known pieces of Canadian history to life. This time she transports readers to Toronto just as Hitler is coming to power in Germany and authentically captures the emotional turmoil going on in the once peaceful Canadian neighborhoods due to the depression and rising anti-Semitism, then throughout the war years as she chronicles the trials of her characters, characters that she wonderfully paints with a reality brush making them utterly believable, especially Molly who is beautifully portrayed, an incredibly strong woman in a male dominated field and a gentile falling in love with a Jew. She’s also captured the emotions of both her domestic and war scenes that will leave her audience enraged, enraptured and at times in tears as she amazingly breathes life back into the Christie Pits Riot in Toronto and into the Canadian soldiers serving in Hong Kong during WWII and the monstrous way the Japanese treated them as POWs. Plus her chosen timeline of WWII is so important especially since so few remain who lived through these tumultuous times. Fans of WWII fiction, literary historical fiction and Canadian history and of this incredibly talented author will find this hard to put down.

The Ryan and Dreyfus families were friends and neighbors their whole lives and the parents and children were best friends, it never mattered that the Ryan’s were Protestants and the Dreyfus’s were Jews that is until it did. And just like what started in Europe and was making its hateful way around the globe, Canadians lost their minds and depending on faith pitted friend against friend and neighbor against neighbor.
Molly Ryan had to put her dream of being a journalist on hold when the depression forced her to quit school and get a job to help support her family. And the anti-Semitic movement made her budding attraction to Max Dreyfus more forbidden then it had been previously. But nothing could prepare her for reporting about the travesties of war.
Max Dreyfus’s dream of being a doctor got harder when Canada limited the number of Jews allowed to attend medical school and it made his new desire for Molly a more impossible dream. But dreaming of her also kept him alive and sane during the war when those two things were almost impossible.

LETTERS ACROSS THE SEA by Genevieve Graham is everything historical fiction should be. I learned so much about the events in Canada that mirror the Depression and anti-Semitic feelings in the United States during the 13- year period the book covers. Graham skillfully weaves true events around well-developed characters we come to care about and who we cheer and mourn for. Although I knew about the Japanese atrocities and prison camps, I’d not read about it from the Canadian perspective, and I learned about the great losses those soldiers endured in the Battle for Hong Kong and the years after.

I’m not often a fan of romance intertwined in a story of desperate survival, prison camps and heartbreak, but Graham pulls it off wonderfully. This is a tale of overcoming hate with love, of struggling with despair while holding onto hope, of acceptance and long buried truths, and in realizing we are all equally treasured no matter our religion, station in life, or wrong decisions made in haste.

Do not miss the authors notes at the end! They are a mini history lesson in and of themselves. I highly recommend this book and will be reading everything Genevieve Graham writes.
Thanks to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I read a lot of fiction about WWII, usually based on true events taking place in Europe, almost always with strong female characters. This novel appealed to me because it offered a different frame of reference, as it mostly took place in Canada and dealt with aspects of the Canadian military involvement in the war. The focus is on two families, one Protestant, one Jewish,, whose lives are closely entwined in the pre-war years, but at odds for much of the war period. The portions of the story that dealt with the men going to war were well told, not too graphic, especially considering their circumstances. The "homefront" aspects of the war were interesting and I think the author did a good job portraying the impact of the war on those left behind and the war's aftermath. However, I really couldn't engage with the characters, and the ending seemed inevitable to me, so whatever suspense the author created fell flat as far as I was concerned. .

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review. This is an outstanding historical/romance novel about the Canadian soldiers who fought the Japanese during WWII . This story covers many true , but little known, facts about Canada’s involvement fighting the Japanese in Hong Kong,. In 1933 Toronto was facing terrible anti Semitism due to the Nazi’s rise to power in Europe and the spread of prejudice and anti Semitism. The Christie Pits Riot brought this hatred right to Toronto, turning friends and neighbors against each other. The “Swastika Clubs” , with over 4,000 members became strong and influential. The story also covered the CForce which was unfit for battle against the Japanese military with inadequate weapons and training.. Genevieve Graham also covered the St. Stephen’s College Hospital massacre by the Japanese when they killed and raped most of the staff and patients. All of these historical events are told through the eyes of Max Dreyfus, a Canadian Jew and Molly Ryan, a Christian . The Dreyfus and Ryan families were neighbors, best friends and the story revolves around their interactions,, friendship and hardships. I leaned a lot about Canada’s history during WWII.. the end of the story has very good topics and questions for discussion.

If you love historical fiction based on a true story, then this is the book for you. If you want to learn more about WWII beyond the European arena, then read this book. If you like lesser known history, in this case the role of anti Semitism in Canada and Canada’s participation in WWII including the Battle of Hong Kong and the mistreatment of Canadian prisoners of war, then you will consume this book.

Molly Ryan, Irish Christian, and Hannah Dreyfus, Jewish, are not just neighbors but best friends. Molly is attracted to Hannah’s brother Max. After the Christie Pit Riot their relationship is forbidden and a rift forms between the families.

As the story unfolds, an underlying theme is the influence of the newspapers’ reporting. Different news sources report events in different ways. Molly questions the differences. She dreams of becoming a reporter in spite of the need to leave school and get a job. She is an inspiring character, a strong woman who finds her voice. At the same time Max’s experience in the war is gut wrenching. The attention to the returning soldiers and sailors and their difficulties returning to society is an important part oft this book.

As I read, I felt the parallels to our news media today, Be sure to check out Genevieve Graham’s “Note to Readers” to learn more.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review. I can’t wait to recommend this book!

Review of Letters Across the Sea

An absolutely powerful historical novel. Ms. Graham has intertwined well-researched history with delightful characters and an engrossing story line. Racial and ethnic tensions, descriptions of battles and POW camps, and sympathetic portrayals of the struggles of soldiers coming home, all based on true accounts, make this book important for people to read. I highly recommend it and plan to read other books by this author.

What an interesting book! I enjoy reading historical fiction because I am interested in history but prefer learning about it from stories about the lives of real people rather than the way you learn it in a traditional history class. I have read a lot of books about World War II but had not read anything about the role Canada played in the war. This story tells of Toronto right before Canada entered the war when the Jewish citizens were being persecuted and discriminated against. Then a number of the boys from the town enlisted and were shipped overseas and the story follows their experiences in the war. When the survivors come home, one of the girls left behind is now a reporter for one of the local newspapers and does several pieces about the experiences of the men in the war. The writing style held your interest very well. I would definitely recommend this book.