It’s also not just a straight war book. How do I put this without spoiling it….there are some mysteries, some red herrings, some tantalising secrets that will keep you hooked and wanting more. For me, it was a very claustrophobic story, you don’t feel relaxed until you reach the end, you get this constant idea that someone’s watching you, that you’re being suffocated. I loved that this focussed on World War One. There are many, many fictional books about the Second World War which are as sad and as beautiful, and I have read some real belters, and I am in no way shrugging off the important of those books. But I don’t think I have ever read a book set in the first war. It’s almost like there’s this belief that nothing noteworthy happened in that war, which is obviously wrong.

But I should say a bit more that that just to be honest. Philip Gray has written a novel about WW1 , and it’s aftermath, it’s effects on soldiers and those who love them that once read will linger in the reader’s memory. So a bit about the novel, without any spoilers so as not to ruin the pleasure of discovering a completely satisfying novel.Yet this is a novel of remembered promises and unforgivable betrayal. Unresolved issues that show for some the war never ended in 1918. British author Gray lays bare the horrors of World War I through an Englishwoman’s battlefield search for her fiance.

There is a great deal more to the story and I will not ruin your enjoyment of Two Storm Wood . My advice is that you get a copy of the book , settle in and start reading, you will forget to stop . Easily five star rated. I was hooked immediately by Two Storm Wood and the sense of danger and threat that continues beyond the Armistice. On the battlefields of northern France, the guns of the Great War are silent. Special battalions now face the task of gathering up the dead for mass burial. A love story, trying to survive both family and personal loyalty, while being tested in the heat of battle.

There have been many , many novels of love and loss in the trenches of the war, usually of the Downtown Abbey gloss. But never have I read , or seen depicted the ghastly story of the efforts to find and identify those hundred of thousands who lay in unmarked graves in France. This is where Amy goes to face the reality of what the war of the trenches meant to men like Edward. Along with the mystery of what happened to Edward, is another mystery, that of someone who is murdering soldiers. This is not a horror story or a mystery novel . It is a love story of Amy and Edward, of love and loss and courage. This was a fascinating book which I found gripping, and difficult to step away from. The utter bleakness of the battlefields is painted in shades of unrelenting brown and grey, and the mud almost becomes another character in the book. The unravelling of the mystery is not a sudden reveal, but a gradual discovery like the identification of a decayed body. It is a book that communicates even more on a re-read as the knowledge of the conclusion gives more weight to seemingly throwaway sentences. I think this is a book that would be of interest to thriller readers and those interested in the First World War, but would also appeal to a wider audience. Powerful historical fiction and a testament to war’s insanity.Powerful historical fiction and a testament to war’s insanity. An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. quiet girl wanders off into the choir loft of a minor church out of curiosity to see the great organ in the loft. There she meets Edward Halsam, organist , choir leader and teacher. .There is an instant attraction between the two young people that soon grows into love. Edward is anti-war , a pacifist and as, a teacher , exempt from the draft. For Amy, who has already knows of many young women left widows , Edward’s views are also hers. But he is poor, not of good family and “ Unsuitable” for Amy to marry, according to her family.. Then Edward’s exemption is lost. He goes to France .and is soon listed missing in action. It is from here that the novel develops into something unexpected , totally absorbing ,moving and , at times , horrifying.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was a standout novel in my teenage reading and beyond the need for English Literature set exams I have always been drawn to the poets from Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon. Insightful first hand accounts like Robert Graves’ “Goodbye to All That.” The author writes beautifully. The narrative flows smoothly. His descriptions of ruined villages, of the shell- ravaged and highly dangerous former trench lines is stark and scary. But most importantly it is his protagonist, Amy, a young. , bereaved woman determined in her quest to find out more about Edward’s fate. Determined , but not fearless- the grounds are full of dead, the fogs swirl with deadly menace. Yet it is also a social commentary of that time. Class and gender are measured against the conflict, and the impetus to change a divided, unequal society. Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. The world has been waiting for a worthy successor to Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong - now Philip Gray has delivered it' David Young, author of Stasi Child .