Friday, August 24, 2018

Review: Fall of Poppies by various authors

When I see a collection of stories from authors I have read and enjoyed before, I am pretty much guaranteed to want to add it to my collection. The nine short stories in Fall of Poppies, edited by Heather Webb, are written by authors I have either read and enjoyed before or by popular women's fiction authors who I have in my to be read stacks. So there was definitely no passing it up. That the subtitle of the collection is Stories of Love and the Great War made it just that much more appealing.

Each of the stories is short, fleeting but complete. They are from many different perspectives, soldier, mother, widow, lover, wife, giving a rounded view of the aftermath of this war that rocked the world. No one in the western world was untouched by it and Armistice Day, which anchors all of the stories here, was a day of great celebration. Some of the stories are hopeful, telling of love finally winning, and others are heart-wrenching. All of them, though, tell of the need, the struggle, and of how to make a life after the upheaval and horror of war. Each story's main characters have survived, battered, bruised, frightened, or worse, but they are all alive and they all have a strong determination to move forward even as they carry the physical and emotional after effects of the war. Many of the stories feel sepia-toned and carry a sense of melancholy, even those that end happily.  Each has the feel of a time long past, of remembrance and memory.  The stories are brief but moving and are a great way for a historical fiction reader to try out the authors included here as all are strong entries about love, loss, and the trauma of war.

Thanks to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I have had to disable the anonymous comment option to cut down on the spam and I apologize to those of you for whom this makes commenting a chore. I hope you'll still opt to leave me your thoughts. I love to hear what you think, especially so I know I'm not just whistling into the wind here at my computer.

Popular Posts