'Daphne' by Justine Picardie

Summary: It is 1957. The author Daphne du Maurier, beautiful, famous, despairing as her marriage falls apart, finds herself haunted by Rebecca, the character in her most famous novel, written 20 years earlier. Seeking distraction, she begins to research a biography of Branwell Bronte.

MY THOUGHTS:

This well-researched novel was loads of fun to read. It is not a fictionalized biography of Daphne du Maurier's whole life, but focuses on a specific block of time, beginning when she is already fifty years old. And only one third of the novel is told from Daphne's own point of view. The other two thirds deal with two other characters, which I found a most creative way of tackling it. 

First thread begins in 1957 and focuses on Daphne herself. The popular novelist receives a whopping blow when her husband of almost 25 years, Lt. General Sir Frederick Browning, is admitted to hospital for mental breakdown treatment and she also discovers he's been having an affair. Devastated Daphne takes refuge from emotional pain in her current writing project, a biography of Branwell Bronte. She decides this red-haired wastrel may well be her lifeline. Daphne extends feelers by writing to a stranger, J. Alexander Symington requesting any help he may give her. She has heard he is a librarian, archivist and keen Bronte scholar.

The second thread covers Alex Symington's perspective. Although he'd initially love to snub Daphne, (for if anyone was to write a book on Branwell Bronte it should be himself, not a romantic lady novelist who knew nothing of scholarly research), he is impressed by her fame and reputation. 

However, Symington hides a dark secret. He was dismissed by his former employers for thievery. His sticky fingers purloined several valuable documents, including irreplaceable Bronte original writings. Symington naturally hedges around this disgrace in his correspondence with Daphne, hoping that she'll never twig. He's a sad and seedy little man creeping amongst his stacks of hoarded papers, also trying to dodge the demands of his exasperated wife.  

The third thread jumps forward to modern times. A shy young woman plans to write a proposal for her PhD thesis on the Brontes' imaginary worlds, yet she's keen to incorporate Daphne du Maurier and whatever she can discover about her correspondence with Alex Symington.

This girl never divulges her name, at least not until the very end. She is married to Paul, a smug and breezy English lecturer who is twice her age. The specter of Paul's perfect first wife, Rachel, hangs over their home. (Does this begin to sound familiar?) However, unlike the infamous Rebecca, Paul's ex-wife is still alive. She is a gorgeous and celebrated poet, darling of the literary world. 

Nothing the insecure young heroine may do in the academic world will ever hold a candle to anything Rachel produces. What's more, the girl admits to herself that she was initially swept away by Paul's sex appeal because he reminded her of Heathcliff, Rochester, and Maxim de Winter all rolled into one. But it is becoming clear that they might have been too hasty to tie the knot. Paul was on the rebound and she was intent on building herself a life that might live up to her beloved Bronte and du Maurier novels. 

This novel reminds me of all the academic snobbery and pomposity I encountered in the English department as a youngster during my undergraduate degree. Paul is not at all happy for his wife to include Daphne du Maurier in her planned dissertation, for he considers her far too minor a figure in twentieth century literature to bother with. In his eyes, Daphne was merely popular, but undistinguished. 'Irrelevant to the proper study of English literature!' Oho! 'Although Paul turns out to have a more personal reason for his antipathy to Du Maurier's body of work, many of his faculty buddies agree with him. 

In actual fact, Du Maurier's whole extended family were quite illustrious. I'm now intrigued to find out more about her five cousins, the Llewelyn Davies boys, who were adopted by James Matthew Barrie and became his role models for Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. 

At the heart of the story, however, is the long distance friendship based on deception. I grabbed my copy of The Infernal World, and sure enough, there was Daphne's dedication to Symington, written while she still had no idea he was a crook.

'To J. Alex Symington, compiler and editor of The Shakespeare Head Bronte, whose life-long interest in Patrick Branwell Bronte stimulated my own, and encouraged me to undertake the present study.' 

Perhaps the scandal which is exposed in this book explains why Alex Symington has no Wiki Page devoted to him, although a couple of articles about his dodgy shenanigans popped up. Yet after all his subterfuge, poor old Symington couldn't take a single one of those documents with him, could he?

This is a wonderful homage to celebrated British writers with more interesting tidbits of info packed into it than I can even cover in this review. A real springboard for further reading. According to this book, Daphne du Maurier has a personal diary locked away in a bank vault, with strict instructions not to be opened and released until 50 years after her death. Well, that sad event occurred in 1989, so by 2039, there will be another fascinating release for du Maurier fans to look out for.   

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Check out my review of Daphne's impressive achievement, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte.  

'The Kind Ghosts' by Linda Newbery

Summary: It is the summer of 1917 and still neither side seems close to victory. Jack and Alice Smallwood, already disillusioned by the harsh realities of three years of war, have each lost someone dear. But the war grinds on, to Jack, in the mud of Flanders, and to Alice, at a base hospital in France, it seems that it must go on forever. And after the armistice, the joy and relief at returning to home life are soon cut short by unexpected and dramatic complications.

Warning: This review contains spoilers from its prequel, Some Other War. Proceed with caution.  

 MY THOUGHTS:

I consider myself lucky with book sightings. I plucked this paperback off the freebie trolley at a secondhand bookshop. It was clearly a vintage read with a catchy title. At first I thought it might have a supernatural theme, then discovered it is the second in a duology about the First World War. Fortunately its prequel is available on Internet Archive, so I raced through that (Some Other War) to get to this one. 

We are back with Jack and Alice, the Smallwood twins, whose lives were abruptly shattered in 1914. Part One picks up where Some Other War leaves off, in the chaos of combat. This time, each twin narrowly avoids death. Jack gets gassed in the trenches and Alice's Base Hospital is bombed by German planes. 

Although many characters cross these pages, the seven main characters are essentially the same as the first book. Jack and Alice, Philip, Edward, Lorna, Harriet, and Stephen. The two dead guys deserve to be still included, for the influence they continue to wield. 

Part Two deals with the twins trying to put together the pieces of their lives after Armistice Day. Jack deals with survivor's guilt, PTSD, and recurring nightmares. Then his wife, Harriet, delivers him a whopping emotional blow. 

Alice's continued grief over the loss of her beloved Edward leaves her wondering whether she remains in love with an idealized, embellished version of her fiancė rather than the real one. Edward's sister, Lorna, suggests this might hold some truth. Then the last person Alice would ever have expected romantic overtures from suddenly declares his love for her. 

I appreciate how Jack and Alice always have each other's backs whenever necessary. She changes her plans to stay near him when he's in hospital, and in turn, she's the first person he thinks to confide his heartbreaking domestic news to. Their relationship is bedrock. It's almost enough to make me wish I'd had a twin brother. 

Every character lives and breathes, including the infamous Harriet. I'm sure we've all come across girls like her in real life. They are shallow and restless, acting on sudden whims, and never thinking beyond their own concerns. Yet the Harriets of the world tend to fall on their feet and live reasonably easy lives, because they never lapse into moments of self-reflection. Therefore, they completely avoid self-reproach or remorse. 'Shame' is a word that never crosses their minds. Some archetypal characters similar to Harriet from the classics include Lydia Bennet and Rosamond Vincy. 

It turns out Harriet made a calculating, cold-blooded move in the first book. Yet from her own own point of view, this heartless character simply performed an action that needed to be done for her own protection. The person who put her in the position to deem it necessary is equally culpable (and he shall remain nameless). 

The twins' faith in the supernatural takes a sound battering, and understandably so. Alice admits to herself that she's merely going through the motions of singing and praying in church. Yet is their faith in providential machinations really dented beyond repair? On the very last page, Jack considers that the benevolent ghosts of Edward and Stephen may be working behind the scenes to find him and Alice each perfect soul mates. At last, the significance of the book's title is revealed. 

If I had any criticisms, Newbery spends a lot of time having Jack and Alice interacting with lovers who are completely wrong for them. Scenes spent with their perfect soul mates are far sparser in comparison, and I would have lapped up more of these.  

Yet The Kind Ghosts leaves me still thinking about the characters long after I finished, which is the litmus test of a great novel. With Jack and Alice in particular, Newbery has us share so many intimate moments in their skin, even when they're alone. Hence, I can't help loving these two in a really empathetic way. And since the unfolding horror of war elicits these reactions, it reinforces what I've long known, that a well-written story is the best way to bring history to life. 

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A Winter Update

I sometimes pause my book chat and reviews for mid-year updates. Ideally I add these at the end of June, but this one has been deferred until August, largely because I've been busy on the homeward stretch of the writing project I describe further down. But here are the most salient things that have happened. 

The Change of Life

I've had a health issue which began early last December. It was all perimenopause related. It turns out I've most likely had adenomyosis for several years without knowing it, or even that there was such a condition. It is a sort of cousin of endometriosis, which I've heard of far more frequently. At this stage of my life though, I became an unwitting science experiment. The question I never sought the answer to was, 'What happens when the influence of progesterone is suddenly removed from an organ that is honeycombed with adenomyosis?' Even though I never asked, I found out the answer resembles something like a school experiment when a Mentos-style sweet is dropped into a bottle of coke.  

If this seems irrelevant to a book blog (my daughter would surely say it is, and I never even mentioned a word to my sons), I've come to decide that matters of this nature are kept too hushed up in general. If ladies' menstrual cycles weren't such a private and taboo topic, I might've discovered my adenomyosis even sooner.

 I'm better now. I have two sources of synthetic progesterone working for me in the lead-up to true menopause, a local IUD plus daily doses of oral progesterone. Sometimes modern pharmaceuticals are lifestyle, sanity-saving gifts, although at one stage of my life I would never have imagined myself saying so. Sometimes things that need simple tweaks can cause chaos. 

The Writing Project

I've been writing plenty of fanfiction over the past two years. My longest and most popular are Louisa May Alcott inspired stories following the lives of several characters from Little Men and Jo's Boys. Perhaps my most ambitious project was Emil's shipwreck story. But the one I've just finished focuses on Jack Ford and Ned Barker, the pair of boys who Jo Bhaer sadly deemed her 'two failures.' Even when an author writes off her own characters, we readers needn't write them off too. 

I came up with some excellent plot-threads and backstories for Jack and Ned. For the last eight months, I've uploaded one chapter per week. It was great fun. Yet it sometimes seemed like a crazy project to start, because Little Women fans rarely seem to make it to Little Men and Jo's Boys these days, and for those who do, there is certainly no existing fandom for these two boys. Who would possibly read it? Yet the views have been steadily rising. 

My pseudonym for these stories is Ada Sage. Ada was the name of my paternal grandmother, and Sage speaks for itself. Taken both together, it rhymes with her maiden name, which was Ada Gage. And I find 'Ada Sage' rolls off the tongue. 

The work is time-consuming, fairly challenging to get right, a huge stretch of the imagination, and great fun! 

If you'd be interested to read these novels free at Archive of Our Own here is the link to my Ada Sage writing. However, several people I know in person would prefer to have hard copies, and I aim to provide that, because I would love them too. But I don't know if will happen in the near future. 

Now what do you think of this? An uncomplimentary reviewer on Goodreads of a fantasy-adventure trilogy I wrote several years ago said, 'It feels as if Louisa May Alcott tried to write Narnia.' I burst out laughing when I read that, for this person could have no way of knowing I am now actually writing Louisa May Alcott inspired fanfiction.  

Mid-Year Aims and Goals

Rummaging through my stash of secondhand books yet to be read, I see I have a pile of Anne Tyler novels and another stack by Daphne du Maurier. Perhaps I'll get a move-on with all of those, since they are already at hand. I would also love to finish reading all the Aussie/Kiwi novels by Ruth Park. So there's a fair stash of 20th century quality literature right there, American, British, and Australasian.

Overall

Despite its bothersome start, 2026 has been a pretty good year. In past decades, trying to stand out, make a name for myself, sell my books, and prove my worth has driven me nuts in many ways, and when results I strived for weren't forthcoming, I'd slump and feel responsible. 

But right now, I'm enjoying being an anonymous worshiper among a sea of faces at different city churches, and an anonymous writer on an enormous platform along with a teeming number of others. It feels restful to think that I am doing each of these things purely for their own sake.     

 

'The Sittaford Mystery' by Agatha Christie

Time for another Agatha Christie from the stash I inherited from my mother's place. 

MY THOUGHTS:  

The time period is the late 1920s. This winter mystery takes place in the deep snow of rural Dartmoor. Six people are holding a mock sėance around a small table. The hostesses are Mrs Willett and her daughter, Violet, who are currently renting the bleak and cold Sittaford House, although nobody knows what appeal it could possibly hold for them. Their guests comprise of four gentlemen. 

There is Major John Burnaby, a hardy ex-soldier; Mr Ronnie Garfield, a young man who loves an easy life; Mr Rycroft, a wizened old chap who enjoys bird watching; and Mr Duke, a quiet, big, unassuming guy. 

A sudden alarming message is revealed. 'Trevelyan dead - Murder.' That puts an instant dampener on the gathering. It seems like such a random, tasteless joke. Although he claims not to believe in supernatural tomfoolery, Major Burnaby insists on tramping the six snowy miles to check on his old chum who lives in the nearby village of Exhampton. But Captain Joseph Trevelyan lies face down with a lethal fracture to the back of his skull. The estimated time of the crime coincides with their sėance. 

It is undeniably creepy. Unless the message truly was spirit generated, who around the table could have possessed such chilling knowledge and revealed it in such a cruel way?

Captain Trevelyan's nephew, James Pearson, is arrested on circumstantial evidence. The unlucky young man happened to be on the spot with the perfect motive, a desperate need for money which the terms of the the captain's will might nicely supply. But James' charismatic fiance, Emily Trefusis, insists that the police have the wrong man. 'Jim is a frightful idiot but he doesn't murder people!' 

While Inspector Narracott conducts the formal investigation, Emily enlists the help of an admiring young journalist named Charles Enderby to assist her in her unofficial, emotion-driven quest to clear her lover's name.  

Since Captain Trevelyan had a handful of hard-up relatives apart from young Jim to sift through, there are the usual Agatha Christie red herrings and secondary threads, including a thoroughly sleazy author named Martin Dering, and a link to Australia. I always enjoy it when Dame Agatha incorporates my country, although we do not call, 'Cooee,' to each other! This isn't the first time she's added that stereotypical detail.

In this novel, Ronnie Garfield has this to say about a certain other character. 'Fellows that go off to the Colonies are usually bad hats. Their relations don't like them and push them out there for some reason.' Since this was published in 1931, his attitude surprised me. I would have thought it late in the day for that particular prejudice by then, but apparently it wasn't. 

Some ingenious sleuthing reveals the identity of the murderer, along with revelations of why others are acting strangely for perfectly unrelated reasons. For me, this is up among her more enjoyable titles. 

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Check out my entire Agatha Christie page. 

'Abigail' by Magda Szabo

I'd seen this book recommendation pop up from a few trusted sources. It is a Hungarian YA classic published as far back as 1970, but not until 2020 did translator Len Rix provide an English translation. Curiosity prompted me to purchase a kindle copy and wow, I was glad I did. 

 MY THOUGHTS:

Whew, what a high stakes ride! The ending had me up until the early hours.

The year is 1943 and the story begins in Budapest. Gina Vitay's beloved father makes a sudden shocking decision to enroll her in a faraway boarding school without listening to her pleas, or even explaining why. He behaves exceptionally secretively, ordering her to tell nobody about her whereabouts. 

The institution is a strict Calvinist school for girls, the Bishop Matula Academy in a backwater place named Arkod. Gina, who has always been rather headstrong and pampered, hates it intensely at first sight. And no wonder. It's an anal-retentive place if ever there was one. 

Matula is the sort of school that micro-manages every detail of a student's life. It sweeps opportunities for temptation right out of the girls' paths by imposing drab, homely uniforms and confiscating all pretty possessions, which then become contraband in the hands of the poor, beauty-starved kids. The staff members are brainwashed by the Protestant Work Ethic, and the school Director, Gedeon Torma, is a dour petty-dictator whose utilitarian, zealous approach is intolerable for a feisty girl like Gina (or indeed for anybody). 

After she makes an aborted attempt to run away, Gina's father confides the truth to her. He has an excellent and chilling reason for consigning her to a benign fortress. This prison school suits his purpose beautifully. He is tirelessly working for the underground army, foreseeing full well that Hungary's alliance with the German forces is destined to end badly. He needs his teenage daughter secreted somewhere where the government is unlikely to detect her whereabouts and use her as a tool to blackmail secrets from him. 

On the school grounds is an ancient statue of a smiling young woman bearing a water jug. She's known as 'Abigail.' Gina is at first skeptical of the rumor that Abigail helps students with their problems whenever they place a note in the jug. Then Gina begins receiving crucial communications herself. (Think of a procedure somewhat similar to how modern people might use AI tools like ChatGPT. You ask a question...they answer. Except that Abigail is far more consistently reliable than ChatGPT.)

Gina is no dummy. It is evident that there is nothing supernatural about this help, for the return of physical notes is a pretty hardcore leap across the spiritual ether. Judging from the content of the letters, Abigail must be the secret alias of the ally on campus whom her father has entrusted her to, the leader of the civil resistance within the walls of the very school. 

Although Gina is cluey, she is also extremely trusting when it comes to certain people. It turns out to be a tall order for 'Abigail' to have their finger always on the pulse when subversive mischief is being plotted which Gina takes entirely on good faith. That is when things really start to heat up. 

The personalities of the other girls, along with the prefects and teachers, are very engaging. You don't need to be a genius to figure out the identity of Abigail. I'm sure most readers will, except for the few who may overthink it, trying to sweep aside the obvious. Yet it is also clear why Gina keeps overlooking this person, even though, (as I keep repeating), she's no dummy.

Gina herself is a fascinating mixture of good and bad, probably like most of us. She's capable of extremely loving and sacrificial gestures, yet she can also fly off the handle in a way that makes my eyes roll. And by the end of the story, she's confronted with her own superficial tendency to detest what isn't showy and admirable on the outside. She kept reminding me of the nursery rhyme about girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. 

'When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.'

 Having developed no people skills or diplomacy in her former life, Gina initially alienates the other girls in her year level by behaving like an obnoxious party-pooper concerning their secret traditions. Nobody takes kindly to scornful and dismissive newcomers. Gina learns tact on the job, so to speak. 

Because of her multi-faceted nature, I considered Georgina Vitay a fairly accurate mirror of myself. And what's more, she herself dabbles in a bit of impression management. Don't we all?

'She wanted everyone to think of her as a clever, cultured, and thoroughly pleasant person, and a good friend. Always kind, polite, and generous.' 

Of course Gina shatters this particular ambition on her arrival, yet the truth she treasures about her heroic father is easy to apply to her too; a passionate person who knows what they want and strives for it, disregarding the unlikelihood of the outcome. It makes Gina a great role model, despite her tendency to sometimes do her block. I'm sure, when all is said and done, that Gina would prefer leaving this impression even more than the other.

I think the secret to appreciating this story is to approach it not as a mystery but as a fine character study and historical artifact. It's high time it was translated to English at last. What a lot we were missing during those fifty years.

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'Macbeth and Son' by Jackie French

Hmm, I don't quite remember where this came from, but this ended up in my box of freebies. I think I must've discovered it in a little free book library myself. As I'm always aiming to read more Aussie novels, it fits the bill for this year. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

This book is something of an exposĕ by Jackie French about a 500-year-old literary travesty. It takes the form of a dual timeline novel about two boys and their stepfathers, separated by half the globe and one whole millenium.

Luke, a small town Aussie kid, wins a scholarship to the prestigious St. Ilf's School. Yet he aces the entrance exam because he's seen it before. This only dawns on him during the exam itself. Somebody, perhaps his influential celebrity stepfather Sam, enables Luke to take a sneak peep before the day, without him realizing it was the real deal. Now that he knows the truth, should he speak up? It seems far too awkward and humiliating at this stage. 

Lulach is an 11th century tribal Scottish boy, who gains affection and respect for his own stepfather after seeing him perform brilliant battle tactics, when their own tribe is seriously outnumbered, against the fabled Norsemen. Lulach's skillful and wise stepdad is none other than Macbeth. Not the twisted, murderous villain we all know from Shakespeare, but the historical hero on whom he is based. 

Luke, who has never had anything remotely supernatural occur in his life, suddenly starts dreaming vivid, accurate excerpts from Lulach's life. (This is farfetched to the extreme, but never mind, it's all for the drama.) The dreams are the catalyst that enable Luke to learn the truth. The real Macbeth has been remembered for centuries not as a bright and shining savior, but as a cowardly cur. 

Luke's research reveals that Shakespeare shamelessly misrepresented Macbeth's character to butter up King James 1, who was a true life descendant of Banquo. But Luke questions how Shakespeare had the nerve to call liars evil in his plays, since he himself was one. Sure, 500 years had passed between the time Macbeth walked the earth and Shakespeare's writing, but when does slander and character defamation ever soften into poetic license? 

Sadly, French's theme has the subtlety of a sledgehammer, for of course Luke can't help taking the lesson home to himself. Are white lies ever really white? A brave gesture is called for when he has to present an assignment before his English class about Macbeth's villainy. Is it too late for Luke to come clean about the overlap with his own life? 

There is a subplot concerning Luke's neighbor, Megan, who he has a crush on. Her family's farming livelihood is about to be threatened by the building of a theme park nearby. This part of the story has an angsty 'Emperor's New Groove' vibe. The kids hope to involve Luke's stepdad, Sam, on their behalf, for he's a TV celeb who's renowned for promoting good causes. Luke's disillusionment about Sam's phoniness is properly ignited when Sam explains that he can't help everyone. 

In Sam's defense, he is in a very tight spot. His TV sponsors, who back the proposed resort, might fall foul of him were he to promote the Fisher family's dilemma. Yet on the other hand, his stepson yells at him and calls him names for his heartlessness. 

Sam's comment that somebody in his position must necessarily let some causes slide, since he's bombarded daily by contradictory requests, seems quite reasonable to me. But being a feel-good, moralistic YA novel, everything turns out okay for everyone. It is all heavy-handed but heartfelt.  

I had to smile when Jackie French wrote in her author's notes that there is really no such school as St. Ilf's (surprise, surprise), for she would never be guilty of falsely implicating any existing educational institution in a cheating scandal of this nature. So I guess if you like the sound of the toffee-nosed place and would like to enroll your own kids there, don't bother, because it doesn't really exist. 

French gives herself the last word.

'When you write historical fiction, you have a responsibility to slip your fiction into the cracks in the historical record, not change history for your own ends, unless you make it clear that this is what you are doing.' 

Bottom line; I do agree with her. Shakespeare was a bad, bad Bard!   

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Note: Also in her afterword, Jackie French writes that Shakespeare didn't simply pull his lies out of thin air. He based his deception on the 'Chronicles of Scotland' by Raphael Holinshed, but painted Macbeth even blacker still. This is interesting because the same culprits, Holinshed and Shakespeare, are also implicated by Josepine Tey for falsely maligning Richard III in their writing. It is purely by chance that I happened to read both these novels fairly close together. 

'Some Other War' by Linda Newbery

Summary: Jack and Alice are twins. When war breaks out in 1914 Jack joins the army and Alice becomes a nurse. This is an evocative and dramatic story of war, love and pacifism.

MY THOUGHTS:

I found this book's sequel first, at a free bookstand, then before reading that, discovered an Internet Archive copy of this one. It always amazes me that excellent books can slide beneath the radars of avid bookworms like myself. I'm sure I would have loved these when they were first published in the early nineties, when I was closer in age to the characters. But I simply didn't know about them then! And now, some thirty odd years later, they're out of print. That is so often the way with books. They are more transient than we think.  

Anyway, I enjoyed this just as thoroughly now. 

Jack and Alice Smallwood are working-class twins employed by the Morland family, who are landed gentry, at a property named Greenstocks. Alice is a housemaid and Jack is a groundskeeper and groom's assistant. He finds having to kowtow to Philip Morland, the haughty son and heir, a bitter pill to swallow. Philip is a tale-telling, stuck-up jerk who targets Jack for the worst jobs around the place. 

Romantically, each twin deals with friction. Alice is in love with Edward Sidgwick, the local doctor's son, whose mother considers her beneath them socially, although Lorna, Edward's suffragette sister, becomes her good friend. And Jack has a serious crush on Harriet the flighty second housemaid at Greenstocks, who strings him along as she does many other young fellows, keeping her options open. 

It is 1914 and world news is full of a senator's assassination in Sarajevo. Then rapid chaos breaks out globally and Britain is at war with Germany. The branching of the twins' separate stories suddenly widens as Jack enlists with his friends and heads off to fight on the battlefields of France, and Alice volunteers as a VAD (voluntary aid detachment) nurse which takes her first to London and eventually across the channel. 

The story is fast-moving, emotionally satisfying, and immersive. Alice's nursing exploits are graphic and revealing, but Jack's experiences on the Western Front, dealing with his lifestyle in the trenches, kept me on the edge of my seat. Even before he sets eyes on the German soldiers, he knows they are mere yards away. Exceptional world events require intense heroism and courage from normal people. And Linda Newbery's sensual writing does it justice. 

Although the whole word turns topsy-turvy, some things never change. Philip Morland gets promoted to an officer's position outright, due to nepotism, since his uncle is a colonel. So poor Jack realizes the artificial inequality on the battlefield mirrors that of the small village they come from.   

Still, life involving trench raids and desperate dashes across No Man's Land is new to everyone, a perfect melting pot for unpredictability. The circumstance in which Jack earns himself a DCM (Distinguished Conduct Medal) is wonderful.

Being a World War One novel, we readers know that not every single character we grow fond of will emerge from the pages unscathed (or even alive). So keep a tissue box handy. I think Linda Newbery puts the words of her own mission into Lorna Sidgwick's mouth. 'We must never forget, and future generations must never forget, this appalling, tragic waste of life. There must never be another war.' Great writing that keeps the past alive is vital for this purpose, even for a shorter time than it should, when novels like this one sadly go out of print. 

It wouldn't surprise me if this book makes it onto my list of the ten best reads this year. Now I'll get stuck into its sequel, The Kind Ghosts. 

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