I was really looking forward to reading this book as I had enjoyed another book, Nevermore, by the same author. I also like reading books that are set in the Great War and I think it is important for young people to find out as much as they can and to remember all the people who were killed fighting for our freedom. The cover also looked as if the story would be really good. It is about seventeen year old twins, Alice and Jack, who have lived all their lives in the same village and are now employed at Greenstocks which is owned by the Morland family. There is some antagonism between Jack and the son of his employer, Philip, mostly because of the way that Philip treats his horse.
The book shows how, in 1912, working people were not expected to mix with the wealthy families they worked for; but Alice can't help falling in love with Edward, a student at Cambridge University and the son of a local doctor. When the war starts both Jack and Alice feel that they must offer their services for the war effort, Jack as a soldier who is soon sent to the front line, and Alice as a VAD nurse working first of all in London and then in France.
The book gives an accurate account of some of the offensives in the Great War, particularly the Battle of the Somme and it conveys well the terrible waste of life in that battle. We are kept up to date with events partly through the letters that are exchanged between the characters. By the end of the war Philip Morland regards Jack very differently from the way he did before the war.
Although both Jack and Alice survive the war their lives, like so many thousands of other people's lives, have changed for ever.
I am glad that I read this book, but it didn't grip me in the way that I thought it would. The characters were not quite convincing enough. I just didn't feel that they reflected the terrible experiences that they had endured. I suppose that I wanted them to be angrier about the sadness that war had brought them. The book does illustrate well the way in which the barriers between the various social classes were broken down because of things like the war and the suffragette movement. I believe that this is the first of a series of five books about Jack and Alice but I am not sure whether I will look out for the others. I think I have been spoilt lately by having had the opportunity to read some absolutely outstanding books that I still think about constantly.
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.
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