Fallen Skies

Philippa Gregory won the 1990 Romantic Novelist of The Year Award, but this post WWI novel is not a romantic novel. The dark, suspenseful story concerns the clearly doomed marriage of a former infantry officer and the aspiring singer who catches his attention. Marie McCarthy narrates with a cool, cultured, perfectly modulated voice, which suits a story set amid the British upper class. The essential message is that those who fell on Flanders fields were better off than some who came home, emotionally and morally damaged beyond redemption. While the characters are memorable and the action at the end compelling, the book is overly long and emotionally draining. This production is recommended for those who have time, enjoy a solid portrayal of a past era, like psychological studies, or enjoy listening to a good reader. D.L.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

September 29, 2008
After losing her father in the Great War, working-class girl Lily Pears becomes chorus girl Lily Valance to help support her widowed mother in Gregory's moody 1920s historical. When her dreams of being a featured singer in a dance-hall revue are interrupted by her mother's death, Lily accepts a marriage proposal from Stephen Winters, a regular at the stage door. Stephen, a reluctant but decorated WWI enlistee still wakes up screaming from the horrors he witnessed in the war and hopes marriage to the bubbly Lily will dispel his terror. But Lily's entrée into the gloomy Winters family home saps her cheer, and singing onstage becomes her only joy. Predating her popular Tudor series, this novel (originally published in the U.K. in 1994 and being released for the first time stateside) attempts to give equal time to both halves of its unhappy couple with mixed results; the domestic misery and foiled longings will be familiar to fans of Gregory's Boleyn work, but even if this is narrower in scope, it still has plenty of power.