My Five Word TL:DR Review : This book is absolutely incredible

TWHoGs is one of my most anticipated reads for 2024.  I loved The Winternight Trilogy and never miss an opportunity to wax lyrical about it so you may be able to understand how keen I was to see what the author would come up with next.  I can’t deny that when I saw the description for TWHoGs I had slightly mixed feelings.  It just feels so very different, and I also don’t tend to read a great deal of stories from WW1 and WW2 – perhaps I should after this experience – and so I did feel a little bit worried about how I’d get on – never fear, this story is so good, I’m absolutely 100% certain that I can’t do it justice with this review but I’ll give it a try.

In a nutshell, this is a truly stunning book.  It’s a little piece of perfection.  Okay, it’s also dark and disturbingly atmospheric.  It’s full of pain and heartbreak but at the same time there are snippets of warmth and light, little anecdotes pepper the narrative and on top of that it’s incredibly well plotted dipping back and forth and sometimes taking a new look at an already visited scene but from a new angle.  I could envisage every chapter, I quite literally had my own little movie running inside my head – it is that good.

The story is told in two timelines that eventually converge.  Freddie Iven, November 1917, trapped under an upturned pillbox discovers he’s not alone.  He is accompanied by a German soldier, Hans Winter.  Through fear and desperation these two will form a strong bond, determined to help each other survive.  Their time in the dark and suffocating space of the pillbox was terrifyingly claustrophobic.

In January 1918 Laura Iven, Freddie’s sister receives a box with his belongings, including his tags.  Laura has recently lost both parents in a devastating explosion and has returned home, discharged from her duties as field nurse after being quite badly wounded.  Within such a short time Laura seems to have lost everything but then a number of strange occurences start to worry at her mind, causing her to want to look a little harder into Freddie’s death and prompting her to return to work on the front line.

To be honest, I don’t really want to give away too much about the plot.  We jump back and forth between the two siblings and a picture gradually forms of what has happened.  Now on top of that, there’s a speculative side to the story which predominantly revolves around ghosts and deals with the devil (that’s my take – the actual story involves a character known as the Violinist).  Now, both these things are so well incorporated that they feel more like a natural progression of the war.  Surrounded by death it’s easy to see why the men fighting on the front saw the ghosts of those they’d known, and a stranger, offering a warm hotel and a comforting glass of wine – well, of course, you’d want to linger by that fire trying to forget all the atrocities you’ve seen. So, whilst there are supernatural elements to this story their inclusion seems almost part and parcel of the dreadful circumstances of the war.  Probably not explaining myself very well, I guess what I’m trying to say is the inclusion of these speculative elements felt natural as part of this particular story.

What did I love about this.

The writing.  Arden is a gifted storyteller, a wordsmith who can throw you into a scene with deceptive ease.  Clearly she has done her homework here and it shows.  She brings the battlefield to the page with such clarity that you can feel the fear, taste the noxious atmosphere and hear the cacophony of gunfire, shells and dying men.  She doesn’t shy from the brutal truth and in some ways that will make this difficult for some readers but I would say this is one of the most gripping and realistic books involving warfare that I’ve ever read.

The balance.  The pacing is good, there is a little bit of set up here but it’s good so don’t be in too desperate a rush to cut to the chase.  Everything in this story is of note.  In fact it’s relatively short considering the story it delivers.  But, what I ultimately mean about the balance is not just in terms of the pacing.  There are moments of love, laughter and friendship that give a welcome respite from the bleak brutality of war surrounding the characters.

The characters.  I really liked Laura – and I really liked Freddie and Winters.  I enjoyed the jump from one story to the other and this is an achievement because sometimes with a dual timeline you find yourself resenting the switch when you don’t enjoy one of the threads.  Laura is determined to find out the truth about her younger brother, she doesn’t dare hope but at the same time she is desperately hopeful.  Freddie is in absolute despair, without the friendship of the slightly older Hans whose steady reliability and authority are a comforting presence, he would never have got out of the pillbox.  Don’t get me wrong, there are other wonderful characters here but I’m not going to highlight them all.

The setting.  Well, after a short spell in Laura’s home we eventually find ourselves on the battle front.  Laura is a field nurse in the Forbidden Zone and Freddie, out in the war zone, struggling to survive and then finding himself a guest of the Violinist, his personality slowly ebbing as he seeks oblivion in the bottom of a wine bottle.  The Violinist could be a simple hotelier, at night, you might be guided by the brief appearance of a light to seek out it’s door and the warmth within, in the grim light of day the place is dilapidated and shabby and seems to be a warren of never ending locked doors.

The plot has more to it than I originally imagined.  I won’t give anything away here but one of Laura’s companions, also suffering a terrible loss is gradually spiralling out of control and this feeds really well into the two timelines and the way events play out.

Overall, I can’t say enough good things about this book.  It’s the sort of book that makes me love to read.  I devoured it and then was disappointed with myself for not savouring it more.  I don’t really have anything negative to say, the ending is a mixture of bittersweet and sweet.  You’ll have to read it yourself to find out why.

Highly recommended.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 5 of 5 stars