Friday Recommends...

Friday again, and it's time for my choice of book for Friday recommends...

This is an exciting book blog hop that book bloggers can take part in once a week to share with their followers, the books that they most recommend reading!


The rules for Friday Recommends are:


Follow Pen to Paper as host of the meme.
Pick a book that you've read, and have enjoyed enough to recommend to other readers. It can be a book you've read recently, or a book you read years ago - it's up to you - but make sure you tell us why you love the book (like a mini review). You make the post as long or as short as you like.
Visit the other blogs and enjoy!





My Friday recommended book 

is

The Soldier's Wife

by

Joanna Trollope

Doubleday (2 Feb 2012)

Does marrying a soldier mean marrying the army? 

When Major Dan Riley returns from a six month tour of Afghanistan, his wife Alexa, expects his return to England to be difficult, and she is aware that allowances will have to be made in order to ease the transition from life on the battlefield, to life at home. However, she is unprepared for the sheer volume of work that engulfs Dan on his return to barracks, and his commitment to his band of brothers threatens to ruin Alexa and Dan’s once strong relationship. The added burden of a set of domestic, and family problems make this homecoming all the more complicated.

I have no experience of living this sort of peripatetic life, nor have I ever faced the prospect of a relationship dominated by army life, so I was interested to see what Joanna Trollope made of this story.
Overall, I thought that the book was nicely written, and managed to portray a world of which I know nothing. Was it realistic – well, only someone who has experienced this sort of difficult homecoming would be best able to judge – but from my point of view, the story was interesting and thought provoking, and managed to recreate the anxious times that lie ahead, not just for returning soldiers, but also for their families, as they also seek to adjust to a very different routine


The book has had mixed reviews from some who feel the book is unrealistic, that's as may be - I guess it was never planned to be a definitive version of army life - but, it never takes the subject lightly, nor does it disrespect the personnel involved in army life.

As a light and easy read, this worked for me...