Tag Archives: novels set in WW1

#BookReview ‘Waiting for Sunrise’ by William Boyd #WW1 #spy

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Determined to deal with my overflowing to-read shelf, I picked up Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd. Thoughtful with a twisty plot, we follow actor Lysander Rief from Vienna to the trenches as he tries to identify a traitor passing war secrets to the enemy. William BoydIt is Vienna 1913. Actor Lysander Rief has gone to Vienna seeking help for an intimate problem. In the waiting room he encounters two people who will determine the course of Rief’s life in the forthcoming Great War. Rief falls head over heels in lust with Hettie Bull but when Rief is thrown into prison charged with rape, he feels abandoned. He is extricated from Austria thanks to the help of a shadowy British government officer and Rief’s own ingenuity. But he owes a debt and is drawn into the shadowy world of wartime spies. Someone is sending coded messages about essential infrastructure, supply and troop movements to the enemy, and Rief is charged with hunting down the traitor.
Boyd is one of my favourite writers, his writing flows and there are multiple layers to consider long after finishing the book. All concocted with a skilful touch of humour in the right place. It all starts in the consulting room of Dr Bensimon who suggests that Rief’s delicate problem, based on an unfortunate but funny episode in his youth, can be solved not by drugs or hypnosis but by his own theory of Parallelism. Rief must revisit his memory of the incident and reconstruct the story of what happened so that today his dreams are about the changed story and his little problem stops happening. Smoke and mirrors. Rief, as an actor, is adept at pretending to be what he is not and there are countless characters he meets who do the same. He is good at spotting some people who are acting, but misses others. But unlike on stage, missing the clues can lead to hurt, separation and death. And at stake in the bigger picture of the war are the lives of allied soldiers.
This is a book about deception; lies to others, lies told to oneself. Small lies told for convenience. Big lies told to disguise treason. Along the way, people get hurt.
So much more than a conventional spy thriller from a master author. 4* for me rather than 5* because of the slow beginning. It pays to be patient.

Here are my reviews of other books by William Boyd:-
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
GABRIEL’S MOON #1GABRIELDAX
THE PREDICAMENT #2GABRIELDAX
COLD SUNSET #3GABRIELDAX

… and try the #FirstPara of ARMADILLO

If you like this, try:-
‘Wake’ by Anna Hope
‘The Lie’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Corpus’ by Rory Clements #1TOMWILDE

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview WAITING FOR SUNRISE by William Boyd‪ https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5hB via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘You’ll Never See Me Again’ Lesley Pearse@LesleyPearse #WW1 #romance

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When a character in a film says ‘never’ it’s a sign that the impossible thing will definitely happen before the end. Such is the title of the new novel from Lesley Pearse,You’ll Never See Me Again. Lesley PearseIt is 1917 and a storm is thrashing the Devon coast at Hallsands. Betty Wellows is with her shell-shocked husband Martin at his mother’s home, safely up the cliffs. Martin no longer recognises Betty, he is a different man from the fisherman who went to war. Betty is working all hours to support her husband and his mother, putting up with insults, petty grievances, grief for the loss of her husband. As the storm becomes wild and dangerous, Agnes instructs her daughter-in-law to go to her own house beside the beach to rescue her belongings from the flood. Afraid, Betty escapes the older woman’s abuse and runs into the storm. As the waves crash into her home, Betty realises this is her chance to escape Hallsands, Agnes and Martin.
The dramatic opening grabbed my attention and my emotions. Betty is trapped in a life of poverty with a husband who no longer recognises her and a mother-in-law who takes her money and treats her like a skivvy. When she has the chance to escape, Betty takes it. I spent the whole novel chewing over Betty’s dilemma; was she right to run, should she have stayed. Pearse maintains this dilemma throughout the book as Betty goes to Bristol where she changes her name to Mrs Mabel Brook, a widow. You’ll Never See Me Again is the story of how a lone woman in the middle of the Great War is able to strive to improve her lot in life. Mabel suffers setbacks, encounters thieves and frauds, and sheds copious tears. There are moments where her life seems to have reached a settled, easier place; but, of course, more trauma lies ahead.
This is a cleverly plotted book that kept me guessing to the end. Mabel at times is her own worst enemy, and she finds it difficult to accept help. Then she accidentally discovers a talent she never knew she had. When she moves to Dorchester, Dorset, to be a live-in servant/housekeeper for illustrator Miss Clara May, Mabel’s life takes a new turn. Nearby is a prisoner of war camp and one of the inmates, Carsten, looks after Clara’s garden. Carsten and Mabel fall into a state of mutual liking when Spanish flu strikes at the camp; afraid for Carsten’s health, Mabel volunteers as a nurse.
Mabel ran away from Hallsands to be free, but her past travels with her. Finally she must confront her origins in order to move on with her life. Mabel has a strong sense of honesty and justice, which sounds odd given the way she ran away in chapter one. But she is unselfish, never turning away from difficult decisions and transforming herself in a short space of time into a beautiful, assured woman that her neighbours at Hallsands would not recognise.

Here’s my review of THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET, also by Lesley Pearse.

If you like this, try:-
‘One Step Too Far’ by Tina Seskis
‘Sometimes I Lie’ by Alice Feeney
‘The Girls’ by Lisa Jewell

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN by Lesley Pearse @LesleyPearse https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3ZO via @Sandra Danby

#BookReview ‘Toby’s Room’ by Pat Barker #WW1 #historical

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As the second book of a trilogy by Pat Barker, Toby’s Room can be read also as a standalone novel. The Toby of the title is the brother art student Elinor Brooke, whose story is told in Life Class. This story starts further back in time with a secret shared by the siblings, something not hinted at in the first book. In fact this whole book is about secrets, things hidden for shame, war too horrible to talk about, fear and emotions to be ashamed of, and things simply not spoken. Society was very different then, pragmatism coloured everyday lives, people did what they had to and tried to forget the bad things. Pat BarkerToby is reported ‘Missing, Believed Killed’, a parcel of his belongings is returned. Elinor believes the true story is being hidden and enlists fellow art student Paul Tarrant – who returned from Ypres injured and is now an official war artist – to help. She believes another war artist, Kit Neville, who served with Toby, must know the truth but refuses to say. Kit suffered a horrific face injury and is being treated at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup. Visiting Kit there they find not only Kit but Henry Tonks, their intimidating professor at the Slade School of Art.
The facial reconstructions at Sidcup are well documented, not least by the medical drawings of patients by Tonks and his team. Once again, Barker uses a true story and seamlessly inserts her fictional characters. And yet again, Barker combines a study of individuals at war while considering the role of art in conflict. As official war artists, Kit and Paul struggle with the limitations they are given, the portrayal of reality is forbidden. As I read every page of this book, the image which stayed in my mind was Paul Nash’s ‘We Are Making a New World’ (see below).

Paul Nash

(c) Tate; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
DOUBLE VISION
LIFE CLASS #1LIFECLASS
NOONDAY #3LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS #1WOMENOFTROY
THE WOMEN OF TROY #2WOMENOFTROY
THE VOYAGE HOME #3WOMENOFTROY
UNION STREET

If you like this, try:-
‘Stay Where You Are and Then Leave’ by John Boyne
‘The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing’ by Mary Paulson-Ellis
‘The Ways of the World’ by Robert Goddard #1WIDEWORLD

And if you’d like to share this post, try:
#BookReview TOBY’S ROOM by Pat Barker via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Qx

#BookReview ‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker #WW1 #historical

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Pat Barker is one of my top five novelists. She writes sparingly with not a word wasted, but creates a world so real with detail and characterization. Life Class is the first of her #LifeClass trilogy of novels which tell the story of brother and sister Elinor and Toby, and Elinor’s fellow art students Paul and Kit, through the Great War. I first read this book when it was published in 2007 and devoured it. I have re-read it now to refresh my memory of the story and characters, before I read the newly published third volume of the trilogy, Noonday. Pat BarkerThe story starts in 1914 in a life-drawing class at the Slade School of Art in London. The class is taken by Professor Henry Tonks, a real-life character, artist and surgeon. Barker weaves her fictional story around the true story of Tonks, the Slade, and the outbreak of the Great War. For student Paul Tarrant, the presence of Tonks is intimidating, as he struggles to find his identity as an artist. This is a novel about young people and their journey from youth to maturity via art and love, brutally influenced by the horrors of war. Interwoven with Paul’s story – he volunteers as an ambulance driver and goes to Ypres, working in a hospital – is that of Elinor Brooke, fellow art student. Elinor’s journey to adulthood is different, given that she is a woman at a time when middle-class women are not expected to have a career. She remains in London, continues to paint and mixes with the society group of Lady Ottoline Morrell, another true character, mixing with pacifists, conscientious objectors and the Bloomsbury Group.
Essentially, this is a triangular love story set into the structure of war. As the students struggle to define themselves as artists, their safe world collapses around them and the abnormal becomes normal. As Paul undertakes gruesome nursing tasks, he questions the purpose of war art and what it can achieve. As his life becomes surreal, so he is cast adrift from his former life without context to judge either his ability as an artist, or his humanity in the face of war. Are some things simply too horrific to paint?

For my reviews of other Pat Barker novels, click the title below:-
ANOTHER WORLD
BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN
DOUBLE VISION
TOBY’S ROOM #2LIFECLASS
NOONDAY #3LIFECLASS
THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS #1WOMENOFTROY
THE WOMEN OF TROY #2WOMENOFTROY
THE VOYAGE HOME #3WOMENOFTROY
UNION STREET

If you like this, try:-
‘A Long Long Way’ by Sebastian Barry
‘The Lie’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Wake’ by Anna Hope

If you like this, try:-
#BookReview LIFE CLASS by Pat Barker http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Q3 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Long Long Way’ by Sebastian Barry #Irishhistory #WW1

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A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry is the story of Willie Dunne, an innocent, who goes away to war not understanding fully what is involved but determined to do his bit. Written in 2005 and nominated for the Booker Prize, it is the tender tale of a young Irish man who volunteers for the British army and ends up in Belgium. Sebastian Barry Set against the background of the Easter Rising, Willie does not fully understand the political implications of what is happening around him. He is born in Dublin, as a baby “he was like the thin upper arm of a beggar with a few meagre bones shot through him, provisional and bare.” Barry’s language throughout is a delight, something I didn’t expect when the book is about the worst of trench warfare. Barry does not spare punches, at times the action and conditions he describes brought me close to tears, but I read on, pulled forwards by Willie’s life force.
He travels to new places, “ravished by the simple joy of seeing new places of the earth.” This joy unravels when arrives at the trenches. “The biggest thing there was the roaring of Death and the smallest thing was a man. Bombs not so far off distressed the earth of Belgium, disgorged great heaps of it, and did everything except kill him immediately, as he half-expected them to do.” And all the time he longs from Gretta, his girl at home. “He was in love with Gretta like a poor swan was in love with the Liffey and cannot leave it.”
I will be reading more by Sebastian Barry.

Read my reviews of these books also by Sebastian Barry:
A THOUSAND MOONS
DAYS WITHOUT END
OLD GOD’S TIME
THE NEWER WORLD
THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY… and try the #FirstPara of THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY

If you like this, try:-
‘The Lie’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker #1LIFECLASS
‘Wake’ by Anna Hope

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview A LONG LONG WAY by Sebastian Barry http://wp.me/p5gEM4-Bx via @SandraDanby