Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
In Second World War Bath, young, naïve wireless engineer Will meets Austrian refugee Elsa Klein: she is sophisticated, witty and worldly, and at last his life seems to make sense . . . until, soon after, the couple’s home is bombed, and Will awakes from the blast to find himself alone. Laura has some mental health issues brought on by issues with her father when she was a child. She suffers from depression and anxiety and is grateful to be given the job to assess Will, though she finds him a little scary and hard work at first. The Elsa in the journals is such a remarkable, wonderful cosmopolitan woman – a gifted pianist, a lover of arts, and an attractive Austrian Jewess, who escaped to Britain before the war. It is no wonder that shy Will fell madly in love with her. Like Will and Laura, you – as the reader – also believe that she must be real. The world would surely be a much poorer place without her in it. But how could she disappear so completely? I do enjoy stories that feature two timelines weaved together, as one of the characters slowly uncover some mystery of the other. This was similarly enjoyable, though I did feel more invested in one pov for majority of the book (Laura), so non Laura pov chapters felt a little bit of a bore but the prose was smooth so they were still easy to get through.
What is the Frequency of Us? | Hachette UK
During the Second World War, Will, a young, naive wireless engineer, meets Elsa, a Jewish refugee fleeing her Austrian homeland. Elsa is sophisticated, witty and worldly and unlikely anyone Will had previously met in his home city of Bath. The unlikely couple fall in love and despite the war unfolding around them, they are happy to be together.Stuart keeps us in suspense as we follow the revelations of crotchety old Will and the neurotic determination of young Laura to discover what really happened to Elsa. Who was the young neighbour in Will’s wireless workshop when the bombers approached? Why did Laura’s father become aggressive towards her? Was Elsa a kraut (or a spy) – and how did playing Schubert at a party help to “save” her? What does her aunt Josephine know? And can the demolition of Will’s old house be delayed while its secrets are being unearthed? It’s been a while since I read a historical, contemporary fiction but this was an easy reintroduction to the genre. The Frequency of Us is a poignant story that follows two main characters - Will and Laura - alternating chapters with their point of views, past and present. We open with Will’s perspective during a bomb raid in his neighborhood where he discovers that his was completely wiped from his life. Cut to the present where Will is now a 90 year-old man living in solitude, Laura finds herself assigned with evaluating him for social services. Laura, with her own set of secrets, decides to help Will reconnect the pieces from his past. Laura is taken on as a favour to her mum, as a carer in a private firm. It is her job to asses 87 year old Will and decide whether he is safe to be living in his house, or whether he should be taken into a care home.
BBC Radio 4 - The Frequency of Us by Keith Stuart
When their house is bombed by the Nazis in 1942, Will is injured, wakes up in hospital and, on his return home, finds no sign of Elsa or her possessions. There are so many plotting threads across different timelines I am in awe of the author’s skill – in his dedication he writes a special thank you to his first ever editor who taught him ‘that the secret to good writing is obsession and detail’. I feel Keith took this advice to heart and it shows in his books! This was a book that I didn’t want to put down. The story is told in the present and the past, between 1938 and 1942, leading up to the bombing of Bath, where Will lives. The plot has you second-guessing everything you think you know. One minute you are convinced Elsa was real, the next you are not so sure, could this be all in Will’s head who suffered a breakdown and PTSD after the bombing?As Laura listens to Will’s stories about Elsa she is convinced that he couldn’t be making her up and goes in search of the truth, but sometimes the truth is not what you expect it to be.
The Frequency of Us: A BBC2 Between the Covers book club pick The Frequency of Us: A BBC2 Between the Covers book club pick
To start the new year I thought it might be a good idea to write a little post about The Frequency of Us, which is coming out in late March. It’s the story of a twenty-something carer named Laura, who is given the job of visiting an irascible old man living in a dilapidated house on the edge of Bath. Social services believe the man, Will Emerson, is suffering from dementia as he has is convinced he was once married to an Austrian refugee who disappeared during the bombing of the city in 1942 – but there is no record of her existence. Laura, who is having her own issues with anxiety and medication, starts to believe there is more to his story than the authorities realise, and is slowly pulled into the mystery of Will’s life. The RAF has lots of technology to let them know what is happening in the war. I’ll tell you all about it inside. New Sports Biographies and Autobiographies: Gift a Book for the Sports Fan In Your Life this Christmas
About Keith Stuart
I am not a huge set-up person. I couldn't care less for descriptions of places, monuments, etc. My brain generally just casually skips over any such descriptions, be it about people, places, architecture, or weather. I cannot be bothered to read it with any interest. So I cannot judge the set-up accurately in this case, but whatever was there in the book worked for me and was not overdone. No one has heard of Elsa Klein. They say he was never married. Seventy years later, Laura is a social worker battling her way out of depression and off medication. Her new case is a strange, isolated old man whose house hasn't changed since the war. A man who insists his wife vanished many, many years before. Everyone thinks he's suffering dementia. But Laura begins to suspect otherwise . . .
Great Deal 
New Comment