(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

June 1914: the beginning of another long, prosperous summer for Britain. But beneath the clear skies, all is not as it seems - the chill wind of social discontent swirls around this sceptred isle.
Shots ring out in a distant European land - the assassination of a foreign aristocrat. From that moment the entire world is propelled into a conflict unlike any seen before.
This is the story of five British communities, their circumstances very different, but who will all share in the tragedy that is to come. All that they have known will be changed forever by the catastrophic events of the Great War.

This is a very hard book to review well as I am still not sure quite what to say about it.

On the upside, after an initial struggle, I really did engage with the characters after about the first third of the book. The chronicle of their lives before and during the war, their struggles and challenges in dealing with their new lives was quite captivating. Also, the historical detail was excellent - I could feel a sense of place while reading it, even though the Great War ended nearly 100 years ago. That is an awesome skill...

However, that same attention to detail is also one of the downsides. While, at times, the narrative was good, it did get bogged down quite a lot, almost like a textbook rather than a novel. Also, the dialogue seem to suffer from the same problem. Just felt like it was out of place, or out of kilter, to the rest of the book. The other issue I had, and almost caused me to give up, was the writing style. One reviewer described it like a voice-over for a documentary and I feel that was the best description. It took quite a while for me to get the feel for the style.

Historically, a good story with decent characters and a sense of what happened. But overall, it just didn't quite hit the mark for me...


Paul
ARH