If you want to experience what life was like for soldiers on both sides of the trenches of WWI, then read, or listen to (as I did), Katherine Arden's brutal, heartbreaking and beautifully told story of Laura Iven, a brave nurse and her brother, Freddie, and how their lives are irredeemably altered by their enlistment. This is also a book about love. And ghosts. When Laura, back in Canada and recovering from injuries she received while nursing in Flanders and from the trauma of the death of her parents when a ship explodes, receives word that her brother has disappeared and was maybe killed.
Deciding to go back to the battle to search for him, she is accompanied by a civilian, a wealthy young woman whose son has also gone missing while serving overseas, and a woman who runs a private hospital and seems to have a lot of connections.
The story is told from two viewpoints, Laura's and Freddie's, who is trapped in a collapsed pillbox alongside a German, Hans Winter, an enemy soldier.
Without giving too much away, this book vividly brings the hell of what soldiers, the poor enlisted men on both sides, faced during WWI. Ms. Arden is a writer whose characters seem real, even the ones who aren't quite alive. I am new to Katherine Arden's books and have become a fan of this and her exquisite Winternight Trilogy. Highly recommended!
And thank you to Penguin-Random House for the wonderfully narrated audiobook featuring two amazing narrators: January LaVoy and Michael Crouch!
