Liked a typical Gregory novel this one kept me hooked on till the end. Thoroughly enjoyable! ( )

While this is not one of Philippa Gregory's usual royalty related novels, it's still at least slightly historical fiction. Set after the 1st World War, in England, a young singer meets a upper class gentleman, and life is never the same after that. A good backstory on the gentleman's war experiences helps explain many of his actions and attitudes. There are many well developed characters in this book, and all the interesting twists and turns makes it a hard book to put down. ( )

I'm a big fan of Philippa Gregory's historic novels about the Tudors, so I decided to try one of her non-Tudor novels. The description makes it sound like it's a romance novel and I don't usually go in for romance novels with their treacly sweet tropes about what love should be. But this book turned out to be filled with complex characters and an unusual love story.

Set in post-WWI England, Lily is a singer on the stage. A completely different class from upper-class and oh-so-proper Stephen. He woos her, she loves the attention. Her mum dies, she goes numb and goes along with Stephen's plans to wed because nothing fits anymore.

Lily's and Stephen's story is not the love story. Their story is the battle of wits between a strong-willed woman raised to be independent by her mum and a man broken by WWI, refusing treatment for his "PTSD", living in a home filled with mourning for the older brother who died first, with little love left for Stephen.

There's abuse, a dark hidden secret (and several smaller ones as well), a look at the changes taking place in society after the war, happiness, sadness and the never ending war between the classes.

Whenever I thought I had pegged where the story was headed, Gregory surprised me and took it in a different direction, much to my delight. So much fun to read, with an ending that settles several questions but raises a few more. What I want to know is, "what happened next?" ( )

I found this book to be interesting, but disturbing at the same time. I did not like the shallow character of the protagonist Lily, but the story line was interesting from Captain Steven Winter's preoccupation with her. As the story progressed and Lily's character matured, I was drawn into the drama of two more evenly matched people. I think this was book was a challenging undertaking for the author. ( )

A little different from most of Phillippa's books, but very good, a little depressing, but written well. Another look at WWI