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Something to Remember You By: A Perilous Romance by Gene Wilder — book cover

Something to Remember You By: A Perilous Romance

by Gene Wilder
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Overview

From the author of Kiss Me Like a Stranger and My French Whore, comes this romantic, dramatic fiction set during World War II. 

 

Beloved actor and author Gene Wilder’s newest novella, SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YOU BY, begins on Christmas, 1944. In a foxhole in Bastogne, Belgium, the innocent yet charmingly clever protagonist, Corporal Tom Cole, is injured. Wilder moves the action to a romantic wartime London with dimly lit blackout-compliant restaurants and mad dashes to the Tube station at the sound of the air raid sirens where Cole convalesces and falls in love for the first time. But is the mysterious Danish girl he meets at the Shepherdess Café on the up and up? Cole is a cellist back home in the States, and Anna says she’s a monitor at the War Office, scanning radio waves for incoming German planes. But is she? When Cole goes to the War Office one day to surprise his new lover, she’s nowhere to be found.

Wilder’s story takes Cole on a quest for the woman he loves but no longer trusts, and ultimately parachutes him, a newly minted intelligence officer, behind enemy lines into a concentration camp to save her life and discover the truth.

Synopsis

From the author of Kiss Me Like a Stranger and My French Whore, comes this romantic, dramatic fiction set during World War II.

Beloved actor and author Gene Wilder's novella, SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YOU BY, begins on Christmas, 1944. In a foxhole in Bastogne, Belgium, the innocent yet charmingly clever protagonist, Corporal Tom Cole, is injured. Wilder moves the action to a romantic wartime London with dimly lit blackout-compliant restaurants and mad dashes to the Tube station at the sound of the air raid sirens where Cole convalesces and falls in love for the first time. But is the mysterious Danish girl he meets at the Shepherdess Café on the up and up? Cole is a cellist back home in the States, and Anna says she's a monitor at the War Office, scanning radio waves for incoming German planes. But is she? When Cole goes to the War Office one day to surprise his new lover, she's nowhere to be found.

Wilder's story takes Cole on a quest for the woman he loves but no longer trusts, and ultimately parachutes him, a newly minted intelligence officer, behind enemy lines into a concentration camp to save her life and discover the truth.

About the Author, Gene Wilder

GENE WILDER has been acting since he was thirteen and writing for the screen since the early 1970s.  His first book, about his own life, was Kiss Me Like A Stranger. His first novel, set in France in World War I, is My French Whore.  He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Karen.

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Editorials

Kirkus Reviews

More sentimental fiction from actor/author Wilder (What Is This Thing Called Love?, 2010, etc.). Wounded in France on Christmas Day, 1944, American medic Tom Cole is discharged from an English hospital for a one-week leave in London. A motherly nurse sets him up with a free room, plus directions on which play to see and which restaurant to eat in. She's the second (after Tom's commanding officer) in a series of subsidiary characters whose cozy benevolence is certainly striking in the midst of a world war. Indeed, an atmosphere of unadulterated sweetness enfolds this very slight tale of Tom's romance with Danish refugee Anna Rosenkilde, whom he meets at the restaurant on his first night of leave. The only potential conflict--when Tom reports for an assignment in intelligence and discovers that Anna doesn't work in Radar, as she told him--is quickly resolved when she suddenly disappears and Tom learns that Anna is an agent of the Special Operations Executive and has been arrested after parachuting into occupied Denmark. Naturally, Tom immediately gets permission to attempt to rescue his love from a Nazi camp outside Alsace; naturally, he speaks fluent French and German (Dad was Austrian, Mom French); and naturally, he springs Anna with just a few blasts of submachine guns--which come into play again when the nasty Nazis break into the home where they are celebrating Passover with the family hiding them. Tom is wounded as they are fleeing France, but that doesn't stop him from insisting on returning when a British double agent reveals that the Frenchman who helped them has been captured. Treacly and entirely predictable, though it will no doubt appeal to undemanding readers looking for a warm and fuzzy adventure.

Library Journal

Actor Wilder's fourth novella (after My French Whore) begins on Christmas, 1944. Cpl. Tom Cole is sent to London to recover after a bomb blows up his foxhole. While he convalesces, his commanding officer visits and asks him to serve in the Intelligence Service once he is well. During his leave before showing up for his new orders, Tom meets a lovely young woman who says she is Anna Rosenkilde. They have a wonderful night but when he goes to find her at her office and boarding room, no one seems to know who she is. Does she exist? Is she a spy? So begins Cole's adventures with Anna and life as an intelligence officer. He must parachute into enemy territory to save her life and find out the truth. VERDICT Wilder has written a short, sweet novel about love and survival during World War II. If you are a fan of historical fiction with a happy ending, this book is for you.—Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH

Book Details

Published
April 9, 2013
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Pages
176
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780312598914

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