From London and the fields of Kent to Paris, Vienna and the Western Front, the lives of three very different women are changed irrevocably by love, ambition and the First World War. Dorothea, Dulcie and Primmy. Their dreams and aspirations found a voice above history's most horrifying conflict. Their triumphs and tragedies were shared by a generation. Their unforgettable story unfolds in the epic novel of our time.
In a pattern courtesy of Upstairs, Downstairs: an amply upholstered English weathering-through saga, from Christmas 1913 to Christmas 1918 with two upper-class sisters and their family circle. Dorothea (Thea) Tennant, tall and handsome and sensible, is the strong-minded sister who will soldier on nobly and love truly; sister Dulcimer (Dulcie), wickedly pretty and perpetually in heat, will survive luxuriously and disgracefully. Among those beaming 'round the tree at the last pre-war Christmas: father Roger, owner of steelmills; lovely aristocratic mum Venetia; brother Aubrey, rather a stiff; nice, frail cousin Maurice; Primmy, tough little parlormaid from a sour London slum; and army-bound neighbor Jack, to whom Thea is rather drawn. At this gathering, Thea discovers Jack and Dulcie coupling during a Christmas game, so Jack leaves in dismay while Dulcie is smug and unrepentant, and both girls are spirited off to relatives in Vienna. . . where Thea meets True Love - Lieut. Joseph Von Crieff of the 1st Kaiser Franz Inf. Reg. But after Dulcie runs off with a sadistic Hungarian tutor to Paris, Thea is whisked home and does her bit when war erupts (working in father's factory, driving ambulances at the front). Meanwhile, Aubrey is a POW; Maurice is imprisoned as a conscientious objector; Primmy becomes a nurse; Jack is mired in blood and horror and mud; Venetia dies; Primmy's retarded brother sets fire to the family mansion; and Dulcie becomes a veritable Barnum of the Paris boudoir business. A bit of everything you'd expect: grisly action at the front, suffragette meetings, nursing and driving under fire, all those coincidences and all those goodbyes. (Kirkus Reviews)

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

The theme for March in this year's ultimate challange is "garden" so am releasing these flowers into the field....