Love Profane

by Davis Byars

Is it healthy for ten-year-old Amy Turner to be so obsessed with the story of Anne Frank? So much so that she and her Jewish friend, Ruth, hide away in the attic to recreate the harrowing experience of life in the Secret Annexe, under the evil shadow of the Holocaust?



Their parents certainly don't think so. Amy's family worry about the morbidity unbecoming in children, while Ruth's academic father wants to protect his daughter from the horrors of the Shoah until she is of an age to cope with it.



The adults however can hardly be said to uphold the family values displayed by the Frank family. Their musical-chair rounds of marital infidelity are heading towards the break-up of both marriages.

264 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2019

About the author

Davis Byars is the author of Another Way to Heaven, also published by Pegasus Publishers. It is a historical novel set in the time of the Italian Renaissance, under the name of David Bye.

Reviews

[Davis Byars]

Love profane can get any random reader addicted right from the very first page. The curtain raised on a school girl named Amy as she battled with the loneliness that came upon her. The parents seemed to be too preoccupied with their own personal affairs to give more than a passing interest in Amy. All to the chagrin of Miss Metcalfe, Amy’s teacher in school who couldn’t seem to understand why Amy’s parents were so aloof about their daughter.

James Turner and Louise were having a tough time trying to balance the demands of their careers with parenting. However, it turned out that managing the home front was proving to be a huge challenge. Louise was afraid that Amy was gradually becoming rebellious.

The void their usual absence created was filled with their activity with a low budget Eastern European nanny James hired from an agency. Louise was wary of the nanny and how she might impact on her two children but she couldn’t out rightly reject the idea considering the fact that it was her absence in the first place that necessitated the need for a nanny.

Amy was rapidly growing faster than most of her mates; at just 10 she was significantly taller than the rest of her classmates and had already experienced menarche. She took a decision to be like Anne Frank by keeping a diary of all the activities that was taking place in her life.

Love Profane is a book that could be enjoyed by just anyone simply because it will resonate with both parents and children alike. It captured most of the challenges children face when parents fail to pay enough attention to their kids as well as troubles faced by parents when their wards seem to be belligerent.



BIO: Author of “Another Way to Heaven” (Vanguard Press 2011) under the author name David Bye. A historical novel set in the time of the Italian Renaissance.


Genre: Coming-of-Age, Romance


http://iloveuniquebooks.com/

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was initially drawn to this book for the main child character, Amy, and her obsession with Anne Frank. I enjoy reading historical fiction focused on WWII and thought this would fit that bill. Amy and her friend Ruth become engrossed in Anne Frank's diary in a way that felt very intellectual and inspired.
I also thought this would be more of a middle grade novel, but it is very much adult with mature themes. Unexpectedly, this book focuses far more on the adults, Amy's parents and those of her friend Ruth. While I do not like many of the romance tropes featured in this story, I loved Byars' writing style and character development.. I felt compelled by the struggles of the characters to find their place in their relationships and felt empathy for many of them. While these characters were all deeply flawed, I felt they were also very realistic. I found the commentary on the wives' struggles with being housewives versus pursing their career dreams and independence to be very timely and true to the feminist movement. I was surprised by some of the choices the characters had many in the epilogue. Overall, this was a book unlike any I had read before, as it incorporated all members from multiple families in the journeys of marriage. I would recommend this book to others who appreciate the slice of life genre or who are looking for stories about non-idealistic marriage.

I received a free PDF of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[January Gray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting. I'm super disappointed. The writing was very, very childish, even for basic level readers. Great idea, poor execution.