This first book in the series, The Three Fry Sisters, begins in London shortly prior to The Great War. The girls are being gently raised by father Gerald Fry and mother Christina, and it’s hoped they will marry well, into an auction house family, for instance. Ominous developments are discussed at the tea table. LOVE IN A TIME OF WAR is never going to be plain sailing.
Cecelia Fry loves Max, a German lecturer in college. She takes his classes and wins his heart. However, he has to enrol in the obligatory military service. This will separate them for at least a year, but they can write.
Etta, the headstrong arty girl, elopes to Capri with Carlo, her Italian lover, because they do seem to have a talent for picking trouble.
Jessie has been attending nursing classes, and her determination catches the attention of a Matron who nursed through the Boer War. She feels Jessie should enlist in the army as a military nurse.
The equally militant suffragettes are rallying, demanding, once the war begins, to be given the jobs done by men – drivers, engine operators, typists, farmers – to free up men to serve. Cecelia takes photos, like her father, who has a photography studio, and develops an eye for the work. On top of all this, we get many flashbacks to Christina, at a similar age, living happily in Italy during the 1800s. The idea is to compare her life and mishaps to explain why she is so protective of her girls. I did find these confused the issues, with timeframes changing and names multiplying. The three sisters (two are twins) would have been enough to follow.
LOVE IN A TIME OF WAR becomes a traumatic story, as indicated by the title, so you have been warned that there will be gore, sudden horror, and shrapnel being removed from wounds. Don’t get too attached to anyone, although the fact that the series is named for the three sisters is a bit of a giveaway. Scenes include Gallipoli and Egypt, Germany, Capri and an unexpectedly scary London. Adrienne Chinn has done a lot of research and provided maybe more detail than you’d prefer to read. Lest we forget.
In 1913, in a quiet corner of London, the three Fry sisters are coming of age, dreaming of all the possibilities the bright future offers. But when war erupts their innocence is shattered and a new era of uncertainty begins.
Cecelia loves Max but his soldier’s uniform is German, not British, and suddenly the one man she loves is the one man she can’t have.
Jessie enlists in the army as a nurse and finally finds the adventure she’s craved when she’s sent to Gallipoli and Egypt, but it comes with an unimaginable cost.
Etta elopes to Capri with her Italian love, Carlo, but though her growing bump is real, her marriage certificate is a lie.
As the three sisters embark on journeys they never could have imagined, their mother Christina worries about the harsh new realities they face, and what their exposure to the wider world means for the secrets she’s been keeping…
No excerpt available.
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