Set against the beauty and eventual terror of Vienna on the brink of occupation by Hitler’s troops, The English Girl is political intrigue swaddled in a love story.
1938. Young Stella Whittaker wins a place at Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and leaves her sheltered English life ripe for adventure and new experiences. Though her studies are exhausting and often humiliating, Stella finds Vienna a magical place of historical beauty, tea shops and fashionable friends. To repay her hosts, Rainer and Marthe Krause for her accommodation, she looks after their child who is still upset by the abrupt departure of his former nanny, a mystery that no one is willing to discuss. When she meets and begins a passionate affair with Harri Reznik, a young Jewish doctor, Stella begins to sense another side to Vienna – a dark undercurrent that also exists in the Krause apartment, particularly when Rainer has private meetings with a group of shadowy men. Asked to spy on Rainer and aware that her relationship with Harri best remain unspoken, Stella begins to realise that much more than her heart may be at stake.
The English Girl brings pre-war Vienna to life through Stella’s eyes and it is her breathless excitement and dawning realisation of the truth which is the strength of this novel. It may also be its weakness. Though Stella is perfectly believable as a young woman of that era thrust into an intrigue she doesn’t understand, by today’s standards she is a rather passive heroine. Concern with her studies and obsession with her new love dominate the first half of the novel and the pacing is almost as languid as Stella in her lover’s arms. Yet, as the events leading up to Vienna’s occupation begin to unfold and Stella sees past the glamour, intrigue and tension deepen. The descriptions of light and darkness are often poignant, and Stella’s observations of the family living in the apartment opposite are filled with pathos. The English Girl is well researched and not overdone. The political situation that leads to the chilling climactic events is revealed only when necessary, and the little details of hat styles, dresses and teashops add veracity and a light-heartedness to the early chapters suitable to Stella’s character.
Leroy is an eloquent and thoughtful writer and in Stella she creates a believable portrait of an impressionable girl caught up in a situation she doesn’t quite believe is possible.