The Walnut Tree is a companion novel to Charles Todd's Bess Crawford series and Bess makes a couple of short appearances in the story, however, you don't have to know anything about the original series to enjoy this book. The tagline is "A Holiday Tale" but it only brings Christmas in at the end. More than that, it's a short tale that explores obligation and duty as they relate to family, soldiers and friends. It also delves into Scottish culture, class structure and the roles of women in the first World War.
I found all of this to be fascinating and I read the book almost all the way through on a two hour flight. A couple of editing issues (odd sentence fragments) threw me off at the start but they were quickly left behind as I got caught up in the story of Elspeth Douglas and her quest to find meaning and love in her life. The romance was very gentle and proper for the time. And the period was portrayed so authentically that I can't wait to finally start reading the Bess Crawford books I already own.
I just thought of the perfect person to give this to. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.
Feeling the chill of war and winter,
K
I'm not really a romantic but I hope your gift recipient enjoys it.
ReplyDeleteI'm just a tiny bit of one. Enough to appreciate a romantic hist fic like this but still not sold on the majority of the romance genre!
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