Tuesday 14 January 2014

Review ~ Wake by Anna Hope

18041980
Random House UK
Transworld publishers
16 January 2014


Five Days in November 1920



The story takes place over five days in November 1920 and as the body of the Unknown Soldier makes its way from the fields of Northern France, to its final resting place in Westminster Abbey, three very different women are coming to terms with their own personal losses.
Hetty, is a dancer at the Hammersmith Palais, she witnesses the emotional instability of the returning soldiers as they pay their sixpence for her to waltz with them. Ada is a mother struggling to come to terms with the tragic loss of her son, Michael. And Eva is a rich but bored socialite, who whiles away her time at a lowly paid job in the pensions office. The interlinking of these individual accounts does not, at first, appear obvious, but gradually as the layers of the story are peeled away, the personal stories of overwhelming loss and devastation are revealed in stark brutality.
The story is beautifully written, rich in historical detail, which is made all the more poignant by the role the Unknown Soldier played in public consciousness in the aftermath of the Great War.

I am sure that this centenary year of the commemoration of the start of World War One will see many fictional accounts of wartime. Wake will, for me, be one of the memorable ones.

Highly recommended.


My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK Transworld Publishers for my advance copy of this book.

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4 comments:

  1. I love wartime fiction, and the story of Hetty waltzing with the returning soldiers sounds so sad and poignant - I can't wait to read this. I love stories that interweave together!

    Nell at And Nell Writes

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    1. Hi Nell - I think that this book will do very well. Hope you get to read it soon :)

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  2. I'm reading this one at the moment, and enjoying it very much
    Anne x
    http://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.co.uk/

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    1. Hi Anne - our reading tastes are still frighteningly similar - I know if you like a book , so will I ...LOL :)

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