The horror elements of the book were amazing, the feeling of being watched by the millions of dead on the battlefields was always with you, as the mystery of the story unfolded. The suspense skyrockets as the various plot threads converge, putting Amy in heart-pounding danger, with a stunning final twist on the very last page. She's focused on Two Storm Wood, an underground set of tunnels where an injured comrade of Edward's claims he might be along with a band of deserters.

But the central character—a sheltered woman who witnesses and experiences numerous atrocities alone—strains the boundaries of believability, as does the unnecessary closing twist. I have read a lot of books about the Great War, and it is refreshing to read something set in the period after the war. She’s not afraid to defy the social rules, especially those that don’t have any sense after the upheaval of war, and still, she never feels out of place.Many thanks to Philip Gray, Random House UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.

Richardson leaned closer to the man’s face, squinting through his spectacles at the aftermath of four operations. She too must confront the unspeakable horrors of war that have scared everyone directly or indirectly involved. This is a brooding, mysterious tale, suffused with a grim atmosphere, where Amy and others fear what they might discover, but press on regardless. One thing that piqued my interest was the fact that Edward became addicted to cocaine and opium during his military life… This and other aspects of the book will prompt many discussion areas for book clubs (Virginia M). Amy Vanneck’s fiancé is one soldier lost amongst many, but she cannot accept that his body may never be found.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 was totally ignorant of the fact that Chinese labour was employed in the trenches, and even to this day, there has been little acknowledgement of their contribution to the war. The haunting way in which this is described meant I could actually feel the eyes of the dead on me while reading, and that takes a lot for me to feel something like that, and you know it’s a great book when this happens. Two Storm Wood has the literary class, intellectual depth, and thriller pacing of Robert Harris at his best - with an added spine-tingling aura of menace worthy of Stephen King.

The story unfolds in different locations and times: the comparatively peaceful city of Cambridge in 1916 and the tentative beginnings of Amy and Edward′s relationship; France and Amy′s journey to try and find out what happened on the 17th of August 1918, aided by the mysterious Major Westbrook; a series of episodes in Edward′s war; and a burial party of Captain Mackenzie with a labour company of Chinese whose task is to find, exhume and possibly to identify bodies to lie in the new mass cemeteries.Gray creates a haunting place, and if occasionally he slips into a recognisable horror mode, that doesn’t harm the historical accuracy at all. Two Storm Wood knows how to bombard you with tingles and thrilling twists that will left your jaw hanging. In this thriller set on the battlefields of the Somme after the end of World War I, a woman investigates the disappearance of her fiancé. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ('combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride' The world has been waiting for a worthy successor to Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong – now Philip Gray has delivered it.

The description of the battlefields and the agony the soldiers experienced, both in combat as well as the shell shock they had, was so well done, I felt like I had a front row seat.

This title will go down in my personal reading history as one of THE BEST stories that I had the privilege to listen to. I think they are particularly effective for mysteries because it allows the reader to learn the story’s details bit by bit and gradually connect them to the main plot. In this poignant, intricately plotted novel, Gray succeeds in entwining two powerful tales-a love story and a hate story-in a way that, right from the shocking start, is both convincing and enthralling.