Review: Enduring Historical Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 27, 2013
The story moves along smoothly while developing several sets of characters, each with their own life events. As the story develops, we begin to see that the lives of each set of characters are connected in some way. This is a story that readers will live in for a time. There is quite a bit of old Scottish dialect, so take an occasional eye rest and see, hear and enjoy the rolling brogue.Although this story is a drama, the author has woven plenty of excitement, suspense and surprises into the storyline. In fact the story gradually turns into an adventure and before you realize it, you are caught up in it.It's a wonderful story that reminds me of a great "classic," and will carry you on an emotional ocean, where you will ride waves of happiness and sadness. It will take you to a time that was wonderful and disheartening, sweet and brutal; a time when war was not an abstract event but rather a personal event where everyone shared the grief and heartache. It was a time when people wrote hand-written letters to be saved and cherished, especially for people separated by fate and circumstance; people with aching hearts.A passage from the book:"There was an enormous, collective grief somehow greater than the sum of each individual grief of the single persons present. Older men and women wept for their sons and grandsons, there were young girls, some clutching babies - marriages overtaken by war, or hurried on by war, enjoyed only the brief space of a poppy flower. Girls of twenty who would have the rest of their lives to remember their young husband, to find no-one comparable, to struggle to earn a living, and other girls who would be able one day to put the past behind them and marry again."There is grief and sadness but there is also great joy. My affection for the main character crept up on me until I felt I knew her. I cared about her. I couldn't stop reading as I followed her on her journey.