The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
An utterly enchanting, immersive novel about an irrepressible young heroine who becomes an undercover agent during World War II–a sparkling debut, by turns heartwarming and heartbreaking.
One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, all whales belong to the King, but twelve-year-old Cristabel Seagrave has other plans. She and the rest of the household and their guests–her sister, Flossie (known affectionately as The Veg); her brother Digby, the long-awaited heir to Chilcombe manor; Maudie Kitkat, maidservant; Taras, a hot-tempered visiting artist–build a theatre within the whale’s skeleton. Cristabel is an orphan, mostly ignored by her feckless step-parents and brisk governesses. But within the Whalebone Theatre, she is fully at home and in charge, and her imagination comes to life.
As Cristabel grows into a headstrong young woman, chafing against expectations, World War II rears its head. She and Digby become British secret agents working undercover in Nazi-Occupied France on separate missions–a more dangerous kind of play-acting, it turns out, and one that threatens to tear the family apart.
- File Name:the-whalebone-theatre-by-joanna-quinn.epub
- Original Title:The Whalebone Theatre
- Creator:Joanna Quinn
- Language:en
- Identifier:ISBN:9780241994153
- Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
- Date:2022-06-08T18:30:00+00:00
- File Size:1.454 MB
Table of Content
- 1. Title Page
- 2. About the Author
- 3. Praise
- 4. Dedication
- 5. Epigraph
- 6. ACT ONE: 1919–1920
- The Last Day of the Year
- The Morning After
- Prodigal Brother
- Circling and Re-circling
- Entreaties
- So First, the Primroses
- Under Beds
- A Sleeping Woman
- Cristabel and the Stories
- Waiting, Wanting
- The Boxing Day Hunt
- His
- They Won’t Let Him
- Afterwards
- The Vegetable
- All Off
- Things
- A Hunter’s Moon
- Maudie Kitcat’s Diary
- 7. ACT TWO: 1928–1938
- Whale Fall
- The Arrival of the God Poseidon
- Welcome to Chilcombe
- Facts Learnt by the Children
- Through the Bluebell Woods
- Black Flag
- Rehearse
- The Mysterious Travelling Ways of Voices at Night
- The Iliad
- Noises Off
- To London
- Maudie Kitcat’s Diary
- Picture It
- Wings and Bones
- Enter the Whale
- Cuttings Kept in a Scrapbook by the Children
- 8. ACT THREE: 1939–1941
- Parties
- D to C
- C to D
- D to C
- C to D
- Blackout
- Postcard
- Note on Pink Notepaper with a Box of Turkish Delight
- Christmas Card
- C to D
- Notebook Pages
- Incomplete Letter
- C to D
- A Nightclub in Piccadilly
- Note on Pink Notepaper with a Bouquet of Roses
- Exhibition Catalogue
- 9. ACT FOUR: 1942–1943
- Captives
- Flossie’s Diary
- Tempo Rubato
- The Sun and the Moon
- D to C
- Blank Piece of Paper
- Vignettes
- Outgoings
- Night Flight
- A Sober Cannibal
- Coffee, Tea
- Captain Potter
- New Recruits
- Full Moon
- Awake
- Claudine, Gilberte
- Sous Terre
- Shadow Play
- The Christmas Committee
- Riven by a Tempest
- C to D
- 10. ACT FIVE: 1944–1945
- Higher Tiers
- My Dear Lads
- Les Enfants Perdus
- Let’s Face the Music and Dance
- The Knight of Swords, The Star
- The Americans
- An Apartment in Paris
- Antigone
- We
- The Island
- August
- What Remains
- Empty Houses
- Uniforms
- Victory Pageant
- 11. ENCORE
- C to D
- 12. Acknowledgements
- 13. Copyright
Joanna Quinn
