Journal Entry 1 by seethroughfaith from Turku, Varsinais-Suomi Finland on Sunday, January 02, 2011

Bought for 99p in a charity shop in the UK during the summer.

This is the first BC book I've registered in 2011. I'm using the special Turku on Fire labels made in honour of the fact that Turku is the European Capital of Culture this year. Yay.



Spring, 1917 and war haunts the Cornish coastal village of Zennor: ships are being sunk by U-boats, strangers are treated with suspicion, and newspapers are full of spy-fever. Into this turmoil come DH Lawrence and his German wife Frieda, hoping to escape the war-fever that grips London. They befriend Clare Coyne, a young artist, struggling to console her beloved cousin John William who is on leave from the trenches and suffering from shell shock. Yet the dark tide of gossip and innuendo means that Zennor is neither a place of recovery nor of escape …

 

Journal Entry 2 by seethroughfaith at Turku, Varsinais-Suomi Finland on Sunday, January 02, 2011

I really like Helen Dunmore as a author, and this did not disappoint.

I read some DH Lawrence when at senior school and as a university student, none the less I had had no idea that he was living in Cornwall during WWI - nor that his wife was German. Yet this was part of the subplot of this novel, as was his 'friendship' with miner, William Henry.

What I found even more interesting was the main character Clare, how she deals with life - and its set backs- There is also good insight into shell-shock and some of the horrors of the trenches. 

Journal Entry 3 by seethroughfaith at Turku, Varsinais-Suomi Finland on Sunday, January 02, 2011

Now that I read up a bit more about DH Lawrence, I want to read this again - so for now it's on BC shelf - and available for LOAN to reliable bookcrossers until I've read it again. Then I might make it a bookring ...