Perfectly Ordinary People by Nick Alexander is a powerful story of family that moves between the second world war and the almost current day.
Ruth has grown up in a happy family, surrounded by uncles, aunts and cousins from her mother's side, not to mention tough matriarch Mavaughn, her Irish grandmother. Her father's side of the family is more of a mystery however, he was born in France but moved to England as a child, and rarely speaks of his past or his family. It is only when his mother, Ruth's Grandma Genny dies, that Ruth finds herself wishing that she knew more of the family history, and so she embarks on a quest to discover more about that side of the family.
The second story woven into the book is set in France, during the period of German occupation, and focuses on Genevieve and Pierre. Using these characters the author explores the history of what happened to Gay people during the war, and it often makes for tough reading with brutal descriptions of torture, beatings and assault. When Pierre is arrested Genevieve takes part in a daring subterfuge to rescue him and the pair flee the occupied zone. We learn about their story in the form of an interview for a French magazine, recorded in the 1980s. and it is the discovery of these recordings that gives Ruth the answers to questions about her paternal family. While the connection between both storylines might seem too obvious, I really did not mind as I was engaged and enjoying both plots. The humour and warmth of family so often described in Ruth's timeline was a much needed respite and a stark contrast to the harsher wartime story. The characters are really believable and easy to relate to, even when they are not always likeable, they really are perfectly ordinary people, and all the more interesting for it.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher , all opinions are my own.

I do love a dual timeline book when done well... as indeed it was with this book. In the present, we follow Ruth who has a pretty large family, mostly on her mother's Irish side. Her father's parents have both died and she is left wondering about the gap they could have filled in her ancestry. Her father sadly is reluctant to talk about them so she has to let it go. Until a friend of her paternal grandmother's gets in touch with her father and, as he is reluctant to call her back, Ruth takes up that particular mantle... but whether she is prepared for what she finds is another question...
And then, back in the past, in the war years, we follow best friends Pierre and Genevieve as they sacrifice everything to survive.
And that's all I'm saying as you really need to discover all the delights of this book as the author intends. Suffice to say, I thought I knew a lot about the war but this side of things, well, I had an inkling but wasn't aware of the full details. The author has obviously put in the hard yards with his research and, happily for me, left me with a list of "further reading". Which I will do...
The story is a wonderful and harrowing one - the past timeline I mean. Back in the present, life is a bit lighter and has some great funny moments, as well as a few cringes. This means that however awful the war years, the book never became overwhelmingly depressing.
It's evident where the book is going, mostly but not all. There are delights to be found all along the way as certain things become aha moments. Although I guessed a few of the secrets, the fallout was always still an unknown all the way through... And the ending when it came... perfect.
And the title is perfect too. As the characters contained herein are just that. And all so well described and all played their parts well. This is always one of the author's strengths, as well as spinning a great yarn. Couple those with the no nonsense attitude to waffle and padding - there is none - and you got a cracking read that I have no hesitation in recommending.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Another amazing read by this fabulous author! Ruth is trying to find out more about her father's family history and what she finds is shocking, sad, and at the same time becomes a wonderful and enlightening part of the family's life.
The parts taking place during WWII are horrifying and beyond belief: the extreme cruelty is overwhelming.……well worth reading! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ruth is from a loving family, each side is very distinctive and one hold a mystery. Her mother’s side is a large and outgoing Irish family. Her father side is very mysterious with a French background. Ruth starts to become curious about her father’s side of the family. He isn’t giving her much information and she is frustrated by it. She is now determined to discover her French roots. What Ruth discovers are secrets that has been kept hidden from outsiders. Her relatives that survived during the Occupation in France during World War Two. They survived by all means necessary and some of those options were not pretty. Will Ruth’s discovery tear her family?
An emotional charged story that is set during WWII.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was drawn into this story almost immediately. What a great depiction of family secrets and struggles, intrigue and persecution and finally heartfelt understanding. I had some basic understanding of the persecution of LGBTQ people by the Nazis but this heartfelt story broadened my understanding. I think the author did an excellent job of portraying the effects of generational trauma. Thanks #NickAlexander #AmazonUK and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Ruth's father has always been quiet about his side of the family, but she never questioned it until now. As her story unfolds, it is interrupted by another: that of Genevieve Schmitt, who is being interviewed in great, great detail, by a magazine reporter. Genevieve tells us the story of her life, and it turns out to relate to Ruth's. Unfortunately, the structure of this novel isn't great. Genevieve tells her story in what feels like an infodump. By the end of her first segment, I had almost forgotten who Ruth was. Then, getting back up to speed in Ruth's present-day life, I was once again back in Genevieve's retelling of hers. No matter how good the story, this way of telling it hamstrung the novel, and I confess I couldn't finish it. I love this author's other works. I was rapt over "You Then, Me Now," "The Other Son," and "From Something Old." I recommend those.

This book really surprised me. I thought it was going to be a “perfectly ordinary “ book about family relationships and the ups and downs of family life. In very many ways it is indeed that but oh it is so much more beside.
It is an eye opener, a history lesson, a glimpse into a past I was unaware existed all wrapped around the story of the two main female characters.
Their voices come over to the reader, Ruth in the present and Genny in the past and we share their feelings and hopes. We hear about the early life of Ruth’s grandparents before she does and so we can anticipate and watch as it is gradually revealed to her.
A great read that kept me fully engaged. Some parts are hard to read as there is heartache and wicked deeds but it’s a story that needed telling.

I’d like to thank Amazon Publishing UK and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Perfectly Ordinary People’ by Nick Alexander in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

During the annual celebratory Christmas dinner when bad cooking and old stories are the norm, Ruth realises that although herself and her brother Jake have always had contact with their mother’s side of the family, they’ve never known much about their father’s and when Ruth meets Dan she plans to correct this and learn of her family’s history.

The story of ‘Perfectly Ordinary People’ is told by Ruth as she listens to an interview recorded on six cassette tapes by Genevieve, her Grandma Genny, that have been given to her after Grandma Genny’s passing by cousin Ethel. They tell of the friendship between Genevieve, Pierre and later Ethel, the invasion of France in WWII and how they survived, and gives Ruth a greater understanding of the secrets her father kept of the experiences he went through. The story is beautifully-written with sensitivity and empathy, and I liked Ruth’s manner of speaking that I found easy and enjoyable to read though the subject matter was often difficult to take in. It’s a story that’s important to read to remind us of how people survived through tough times in Occupied France.

Informative, well-written tale of beating the odds to survive👥👶👥

I picked this novel because I had had a great reading experience with a Nick Alexander story in the past. Not a shadow of disappoint in my choice: this book brought all the emotion while educating me about the little discussed brutal persecution of homosexuals as the Nazis rolled into France. The story unfolds in alternating time periods and perspectives, told on one hand through a taped interview in 1986 with Genevieve Schmitt, a lesbian survivor of WWII, and on the other by her granddaughter Ruth, totally unsuspecting of the family drama until after her grandmother's death.

The wartime story was the heart and bulk of the book for me. So much fear, uprooting, living in uneasy hardship and knowing or at least suspecting that despite their privations others had it much worse and many were lost to them forever. But even after the war is over and the Nazis defeated, Genevieve and her nearest and dearest are not safe unless they do their utmost to blend in and act like perfectly ordinary people to escape prejudice and prosecution for being gay. There are bright spots to temper the heavy content, but mostly this is a tale of two determined young people fighting for themselves and a child to survive and overcome their loss. Ruth's father William is a key character in both lines of the narrative and, though he often comes across as a rude, prejudiced man, eventually Alexander reveals William as a man betrayed by the very people he loved and trusted as they kept their secrets and true selves from him throughout their lives.

It's a fascinating story and I could not recommend it more highly.

Thanks to Amazon Publishing UK and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

The story
Ruth works in publishing and lives in London. When she meets Dan, she starts to realise that she really doesn’t know much about her father’s side of the family. Her grandmother has died recently and they were never close. The gift of a set of cassette tapes from her gran’s cousin Ethel sent after her death opens up a heartrending story about the complicated relationship between Genny, Ethel and Pierre, and her own family history.

My thoughts
This story gave me the biggest lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. It’s beautiful, sad, hard to read and hits all the feels. I know from personal experience that family secrets are hard to deal with, and super hard to deal with when they challenge your own identity. I liked that the historical parts were balanced with Ruth’s own life and the ordinariness of it all. A super read ❤️

The jump between now and then was sharp, too long between then and now making it hard for me to keep. It was interesting to read about another experience of WWII. It seemed to me that there were two completely different storylines, which it transpired there was, and I only got the connection at about the 45% mark. As soon as I got it, I really enjoyed the story.

Ruth has a bunch of cassettes which reveal an incredible WWII story with a close connection to her own family.

Rating 4.5 rounded up.

This is my first book to read by this author but I cannot wait to read more by them! This is such a uniquely written story that you will find yourself thinking about long after you finish it. Highly recommend!!

Nick Alexander does it again, this time with a history lesson. I always enjoy his stories. This one had some pretty heavy, eye-opening social lessons but was still a page-turner and it all came together in the end.

Just when I thought there were no new WWII stories to tell….
This is a dual timeline novel. In the present, Ruth’s paternal grandmother dies, leading her to realize that while she knows a lot about her maternal Irish relatives, she knows next to nothing about her paternal relatives. She sets out to remedy that and learns about them through audio tapes of an interview given by her aunt Genevieve numerous years ago. Genevieve tells the story of her friend Pierre and what they endured in occupied France during WWII, and how they escaped with a baby in tow. While I have read plenty of novels set during WWII, I don’t recall ever reading about the Nazi’s treatment of homosexuals. The harrowing story of the past is thankfully lightened somewhat by the levity of some current day moments, but it is still a tough, but important, read.

This 'dual time' story of Ruth, a woman in her thirties and her discoveries about her grandparents and what they went through in WWII because of their sexual orientation could have been compelling, but it was anything but. It was strangely and not very effectively structured but the primary problem was that the two main characters, Ruth and Grandma Genny, told their stories at a remove, and in 'voices' that were adolescent (and very similar!) and thus very irritating as well as unbelievable. I felt no emotional connection to either of them because of this, in spite of the horrific situations the grandparents had suffered and Ruth discovered. The only characters in the entire cast I found realistic were Ruth's father and mother; at least they showed some character and did not speak in facile, adolescent voices. Through the whole book I assumed that this must be a debut novel by a writer who did not get a manuscript assessment or any editorial input. In addition I did wonder if the unrealistic 'voices of the two main female characters were a result of the male author's inexperience with projecting female voices on the page. The reporter who interviewed Grandma Genny was also facile. So I was shocked when I got to the end of the book (hoping it might get better!) and discovered the author was a writer who had written numerous previous novels and for a publishing house!! It seemed that he had a good idea for a novel based on a historical situation but then just wrote it without any editorial input, perhaps because he was a seasoned writer. I would not have written such a review if this had been a debut writer, as we all have to learn (and keep on learning) but as this author is so well-known, I am sure the occasional poor review won't matter to him, and it might be helpful for other readers. My rating of 2 (or 2.5) reflects my belief that seasoned writers and big publishing houses should be more selective re the quality of the books they publish, however well-known the author is.

A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed the parts told as interview cassettes from 1986 and found the memories very touching. A lovely, poignant story.

Thanks to #NetGalley for an advance copy of #PerfectlyOrdinaryPeople. This book was an emotional rollercoaster. Following a family discovering their heritage and discovering too late that you can't discover who your grandparents are after they're gone.
During the reading of this I did feel that it was a bit long, however it didn't take from the story. It did have some descriptive incidents that occurred during WWII which could be upsetting. Overall it is a book that I'm glad to have read, to learn more regarding WWII and to remind us to treasure what we have while we have it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fans of The Huntress, The Nightingale, and historical fiction in general will love this novel. It focuses on the stories and lives of gay people during WWII, and the horrific things they experienced and faced, because of their sexuality.

Genevieve and Pierre are best friends in grade school. When Ethel comes along, they draw her into their circle and the three of them form a fast friendship.

Fast forward a few years, and WWII is on the horizon. The Germans have invaded France and people are being deported, killed, and arrested for anything and everything. No one is safe and everyone is suspicious of their neighbors.

The story is told from two time periods, and two separate story lines. Present day introduces us to Ruth and Jake, siblings in a close knit, boisterous family. Ruth starts to wonder why they are so close to her mother's family but know next to nothing about her father's.

As she starts digging, she uncovers family secrets and a past that will change everything.


I really enjoyed this novel and that it addressed the treatment of gay people during the war, I had never read anything that even mentioned that before, and I have read a lot of books from WWII. I gave the book 4⭐ because I found Ruth's story to be slightly distracting at times and less interesting than the other point of view. (Although I did enjoy getting to know Ruth!)

Thanks to netgalley for an advanced review copy.

Ruth has a relatively happy childhood with her brother but then one family Christmas things are thrown into the air and a family divide begins when her Father makes some antisemitic comments. This opens a whole can of worms when Ruth realises that she really hardly knows anything about her grandparents on her fathers side. Further investigations lead her to some tape recordings of an interview with her grandmother which tell a tragic story of love and torture under Nazi occupation.
The story flits from present day relationships within the family and between Ruth and her new boyfriend Dan to the recorded story during the second world war. I read this book over three nights, not being able to keep away from knowing what happens next.. I really have to say that Nick Alexander has done it again and never disappoints. The characters were fantastically drafted and I was able to feel empathy with all of them. Nick has obviously done his historical research. Even though we know of these horrific war crimes the story is still shocking and definitely tugs at the heart strings. We are rooting for Pierre and Genevieve all the way. I don't want to say too much to give away the plot so I would HIGHLY recommend reading this for yourself. I can't remember the last time I cried reading a book but luckily my kindle is water proof. .Thank you Nick for what is another fantastic ride of emotions! If anyone is pondering purchasing this book stop pondering right now and add to basket!!!!

NICK ALEXANDER – PERFECTLY ORDINARY PEOPLE ****

I read this novel in advance of publication through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Having read all Nick Alexander’s previous novels, I found this one difficult to enjoy and, at times, read. The opening sentence is brilliant. And the subject is important and horrifying. But –

The story is told in two ways. By Ruth, who introduces many of the characters. And by a prolonged interview recorded in 1986 between a woman called Genevieve and interviewer for French gay magazine Gai Pied.

The latter is the important part of the story, about the Nazi’s treatment of Jews and homosexuals. Slanted towards the gay angle, which is not so widely known, it is based in part of the real-life testimony of Pierre Seel, the only French homosexual to have testified about his experiences of deportation.

One can’t argue with the quality of Alexander’s writing, nor the research that has been done. It is obviously something he feels passionate about. But, and here comes that but. Because the most important, devastating part of the story is told through this prolonged interview, one woman relating what happened decades in the past, and about other people, often things she has been told rather than seen for herself, it loses impact. As the reader you are removed from the action by filtering (and the interviewer’s rather inane comments) and being told what happened rather than shown. For me that was a mistake. This story is something you want to see and feel first hand, not something to be dulled and diluted.

I hope this novel will be a success, but it could have had so much more impact. And, with such an important story to tell, that is a shame.