In a Field of Blue: A Captivating Tale of Love and Loss

janet: Very interesting
About wWW1 and a close family. Part in Canada in very cold
Weather
Lots of good loyal friends

United States on Aug 24, 2023

Kindle Customer: In a Field of Blue held my attention beginning to end. A story of the first quarter of the 20th century, so well written made me feel like I was there. I recommend this book for anyone interested in history, mystery, romance, war. Quit a mixture but it all works.

United States on Aug 02, 2023

Erin G: England 1922. Four years ago Rudy's eldest brother Edgar disappeared, now at a note from his mother he's returning to the family home to find a young woman with a young boy. Mariette claims to be the widow of Edgar, and has brought his son to know his family. Among their grief Rudy and his mom welcome the pair into their home to piece together some of Edgar's last movements. But not everything adds up, including Edgar's date of death and the date on the marriage certificate. After Mariette disappears after a suspected dispute with Rudy's middle brother, Laurence, he sets out for France to search for her, any secrets of his brother, and most of all answers.

I started out trying to read the kindle edition and struggled to start the story out, but the audiobook really brought the story and characters to life and soon enough I found myself alternating between the two editions to finish the book faster. I love audiobooks because they give a book another chance sometimes. I might have passed on the book, at least for a while, because I couldn't get into the reading of it. It's another tally to the list of books I enjoyed thanks to narration that I wouldn't have gotten through...

United States on Apr 15, 2023

Keith Sanderson: This novel is a truly epic and amazing story of family, family inter-relationships, love, jealousy, rural France, aristocratic England, snowbound Canada - all in a setting of WW1 and the disastrous after-effects of the minds of embattled soldiers. Then described as shell shock and now diagnosed as PTSD. A must read.

United Kingdom on Mar 20, 2023

leafs: Not all love, but true love, will never die. The ends one will go to for those they love is beyond our human ability. This love is so painful at times that breathing becomes forgotten or unbearable at times. This is the love that is at the core of these characters and how they become connected is driven by the source of this impossible love.

The characters are so beautiful and so tortured and so forgiving and so terrible and suffer so much. It was beautiful, painful, and hopeful. I have read parts of this novel holding my breath, hitting the book down on the arm of my recliner in anger and frustration, and gently holding it to my chest as I caught my breath in relief, joy, and happiness as circumstances showed a small reprise in their constant taking.

It was a book that allowed me to feel the realities of a time in which I did not live. It gave me a glimpse into the harshness of a time that my parents lived in and a respect for the way they survived what was inhuman. With such great loss and destruction comes a respect for what you do have and an understanding of what is important. Love and family bonds go deeper than blood and survival is accomplished in many...

United States on Feb 19, 2023

Gebsona: This was a book I couldn’t put down. From the start, I was drawn into the complicated account of a family during World War 1 and the consequences that remained with them for many years, indeed into World War 2. The story is told in a series of personal stories by the main characters, three brothers and two sisters. Each account builds on the stories of others to reach a huge conclusion. It’s a story that crosses three countries, each very different but equally important in the telling. I couldn’t wait to get to the conclusion, but was sad that I had!

United Kingdom on Jun 01, 2021

Karren's Reading Nook: England 1922, Rudy receives word from his mother she wants him to return immediately from London to the family estate Lakeland Manor, he’s very worried as his mother hasn’t been coping well with the loss of her husband and her older son Edgar during WW I. A strange French woman Mariette, has just turned up on his mothers doorstep, clamming to his late brothers Edgar’s wife and with her she has her four year old son Samuel and Edgar is his father? Edgar has always been his mother’s favorite son, he was listed as missing in action in 1918, four years after the war ended they still have no idea what happened to him and now this. Peggy the family’s maid puts his mother to bed and Mariette and Samuel stay and Rudy tries to work out what’s going on.

Of course the family has their doubts, the war has been over for four years, why did Mariette wait so long to contact them and she informs them she had to save money for the trip? She has a marriage certificate, a photo of Edgar and no one can confirm her story, it’s all rather vague and parts of it don’t add up.

If it’s true, if Mariette did marry Edgar, it will change things for the whole family, because...

Australia on Apr 12, 2020

Michael J.N.: The consequences of the oldest son Edgar going missing after serving in the first world war. The rest of the family are left in Limbo with no answers as to if he survived or died. He was to inherit the large house and estate.
Then a young French woman arrives with a young boy claiming that she was married to Edgar and this is his son.
Edgars youngest brother Rudy falls for the young woman but then she disappears leaving the young boy behind after meeting the middle son who will inherit the estate if Edgar is in fact dead. The book is split into accounts of each of the brothers and the young French woman each with their own history and perspective. I found it to be an interesting read and very enjoyable.

United Kingdom on Feb 24, 2020

ms kim greenaway: Initially I thought the plot was similar to a few other post war stories,big house and the unknown women\child arrives to claim the fortunes it is slow to begin with.however Gemma made the characters so alive her description of their characters and the places I really did feel part of the story. Her skill in keeping you wondering with the twists and turns and the details and stories within the story make this book an excellent read. My first Gamma Movie to read and i can't wait to read the others

United Kingdom on Jan 30, 2020

Jamie Bee: There are some things that I consider to be cardinal sins in books. One of them is data dumps, where the author just tells us a bunch of information instead of weaving it into the story naturally. This happened in several places in this book—especially at the beginning—and it certainly did slow things down. Another cardinal sin, at least in my book, is not starting where the action is. I don't know why some authors feel like they can't just start with an interesting part; instead, they ramp up into the action instead of just placing us there. I felt that that happened in this book. It should have started with the scene at Rudy's mother's house with Mariette. Finally, another cardinal sin is to cut away from this pivotal first scene to something that is mostly irrelevant. In this book, just after the big announcement in that pivotal (true) first scene, the author cuts away to telling about the narrator's birth and early childhood! Seriously!

This novel didn't really feel completely coherent to me. It isn’t just the pacing. There is an odd collection of narrators as well. The first part of the book is told from Rudy's standpoint, the next healthy portion of the book is...

United States on Jan 02, 2020