We have it all in this story. Time travel, a good deal of history, a love affair, the tragic workings of a mental hospital in the present century. This book was good. The story fascinating. Almost too good to be true. So though you know its a bit of fantasy, deep down you'd like it to be true.
1916 Captain Robert Lovett is convalescing at Coldbrook Hall. He cannot see though doctors have assured him that there is no physical impediment to him getting his sight back.
In 2017 Louisa Casson through a number of sheer coincidences, finds herself in a mental health institution called Coldbrook Hall. The premises is their connection and one day Louisa disappears and turns up as Rose Ashby a Volunteer Nurse. Her stay as Rose is not permanent as she keeps going back and forth to 2017, until she realises she wants to be with Robert despite him returning to the Front, and so goes back to Amiens to the battlefront herself.
The two time frames are both intense - not everyday life. One is an institution run like a prison with Victorian attitudes to mental health and brutality and cruelty to match. Then we have both England and Europe in the grip of WWI , Robert a POW the harshness of life at the front, and the sheer numbers one is faced with in the hospitals. In the midst of this the love story is the only hopeful, bright spark amongst the misery.
Characters spot on, descriptiveness very good, fascinating story.
Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of The Cameo Press.
Sounds like an emotionally draining read but I like to read about the era so maybe.
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