The Heroes' Welcome

March 2, 2015
This swing volume in Young's engaging WWI-era trilogy picks up where My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You ended, just months after the armistice. Now, each of the finely drawn main characters has to figure out how to get past the horrors of the Great War and accept the changes it has brought. Young Riley Purefoy, a working-class boy elevated to captain during the war, faces the biggest challenge: living with a disfiguring facial wound. Riley meets this new world head-on. He marries his childhood sweetheart, the wealthy Nadine Waveney, who served as a nurse during the war, and searches for a suitable occupation. Meanwhile, Peter Locke, Riley's former commanding officer, tries to blunt his memories of the trenches with alcohol, ignoring his devoted wife, Julia, and their young son. While Peter and Julia seem stuck in the past, Peter's sister, Rose, still working as a nurse, is determined to become a new woman of the postwar period, dedicated to career rather than family. Parts of the plot seem a bit Downton Abbeyish, but Young manages to create characters who project an appealing combination of melancholy and moxie, imbuing her story with such quiet power that readers will be anxiously awaiting the final installment.

The trauma of war can be a challenging topic for authors and narrators, but this audiobook avoids stereotypes to present a dark yet memorable story of two couples' journeys to recovery after the Great War. The result is a complex story delivered with sensitivity and emotion by narrator Dan Stevens. The story of the Purefoys and the Lockes highlights the challenges each couple faces as they deal with the memories, pain, and hostility they harbor as a result of their actions during the war. Although Stevens's portrayal of Peter Locke's battles with alcohol highlights the book, it is his more understated delivery of the other characters' demons that brings out the best of the novel. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine