Chapter Eighty-One: The Time in Between

What a great novel!!!  The Time in Between by María Dueñas, translated from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn, is an epic (609 pages) tale of one woman's journey from being the only child of a single mother in Madrid to becoming a dressmaker for the rich and famous, first for society women in the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco in the late 1930s and then, with the onset of World War Two, for the wives of Nazis and supporters of Franco in Madrid.  Protagonist Sira Quiroga also becomes involved with espionage during the war, finding totally new aspects of herself both as a dressmaker and as a spy.  This novel is rife with love, loss, intrigue, and drama, and also with smaller, daily concerns that make it really believable.  I became truly engrossed with Sira's world, the various characters populating it, and the lushly described settings.  If you want an excellently told story that will keep you interested, I definitely recommend The Time in Between, which I will certainly be re-reading at some point in the not-too-distant future.