In the original dustsheet. Navy cloth binding with silver title on the spine.

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The captivating prequel to the treasured Grantchester series follows the life, loves, and losses of young Sidney Chambers in postwar London. It is 1938, and eighteen-year-old Sidney Chambers is dancing the quickstep with Amanda Kendall at her brother Robert’s birthday party at the Caledonian Club. No one can believe, on this golden evening, that there could ever be another war. Returning to London seven years later, Sidney has gained a Military Cross and lost his best friend on the battlefields of Italy. The carefree youth that he and his friends were promised has been blown apart, just like the rest of the world–and Sidney, carrying a terrible, secret guilt, must decide what to do with the rest of his life. But he has heard a call: constant, though quiet, and growing ever more persistent. To the incredulity of his family and the derision of his friends–the irrepressible actor Freddie and the beautiful, vivacious Amanda–Sidney must now negotiate his path to God: the course of which, much like true love, never runs smooth.

The Road to Grantchester will delight new and old fans alike and finally tell the touching, engaging, and surprising origin story of the Grantchester Mysteries’ beloved archdeacon.

Review: I really liked this book. In Mr Runcie’s quiet, gentle, way it depicts very well the horror of war for the infantryman, the difficulty of the return to home and civilian life, and the process of healing thereafter. The account of war in Italy is striking in its arbitrary realism: ‘arbitrary’ in the way that people — friends, acquaintances — are killed, just like that, and we move on. That architectural treasure, the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, is levelled by Flying Fortresses in aid (not much!) of the infantry. Runcie’s best friend, alter ego and force of nature, Robert Kendall, is killed — just like that. Runcie, and Kendall’s family, basically never recover from the blow.

Loss notwithstanding, they persevere in a well-depicted postwar Britain. Runcie’s religious vocation is well drawn — with a fair bit of theology and Biblical/New Testament reference thrown in — without ever becoming sanctimonious or tiresome. And there’s clearly a great love story there with Amanda Kendall, if only the pair have the wit to see it. This book is the prequel to the six volumes of mysteries. I have only read two of those, but I suspect this book is Mr Runcie’s ‘piece de résistance’. Recommended.

 The Author, James Runcie is an award-winning film-maker and the author of ten novels that have been translated into twelve languages. His novels have been turned into a TV series called Grantchester, which stars James Norton as Sidney Chambers. Runcie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Commissioning Editor for Arts at BBC Radio 4. He lives in London and Edinburgh.
www.jamesruncie.com
www.grantchestermysteries.com