Louise's War (The Trenwith Trilogy #2) by Rosie Clarke
Genre: Historical fiction, Sagas, WW1
Read: 12th June 2024
Published: 2nd June 2024
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Caught between enemy lines – can they survive?
1914, Hampshire
Jack Barlow has a dream. For generations his family have been in service at Trenwith Estate. If he can survive the ravages of war, he’ll return home to build his own mechanic business and become master of his own destiny.
Louise Saint-Claire, is battling against the odds to run her family farmhouse in German occupied France after her abusive husband is taken prisoner by the Germans. She is determined to survive this brutal and bloody war.
But fate throws Jack and Louise together when she finds the wounded British soldier and she decides to risk everything to keep him safe
What chance can one woman and one man have when caught between the French Resistance and the German army?
Previously Published as Love and War by Linda Sole
MY THOUGHTS:
Caught between enemy lines...can they survive...?
Rosie Clarke is one of my favourite authors. I simply devour every one of her sagas, whether they be a series or standalone, and I enjoy every sojourn with them. LOUISE'S WAR is the second in the Trenwith Trilogy and takes us across the Channel and into enemy territory as war continues to rage in Europe.
This tale begins just after war is declared and the men are shipping out to "see the world" as the propaganda posters told them. What they didn't say was the cold and muddy trenches in which they would be serving most of their time whilst the officers were kept warm and dry in better quarters.
It's the men on the ground who do the grunt work and it's here that young Jack Barlow finds himself after joining up, having worked as a groom for the Trenwith estate alongside his sister Rose who was in service as Sarah's lady's maid in the first book. Jack has endured rigorous training and has caught the attention of a drill sergeant who sees fit to make Jack's life as difficult as possible. But when he thought he was sending Jack on a menial task an opportunity arose instead giving him a chance to make a difference. He is employed as a driver for Captain Martin who oftentimes enters enemy territory or takes them close to the Front where both men find themselves dicing with death to make it back alive. When one such mission goes awry, Jack finds himself alone and abandoned in a foreign land with nothing but the clothes on his back and no memory of who he is and what he is doing there.
Louise Saint Claire sees the bedraggled soldier loitering on her property, she fears he will bring unwanted attention and so she hurries to help the young man before he is seen. Louise has battled her own war for years married to a brute of a man who had recently been taken prisoner by the Germans and she knows not if he is alive or dead. She nurses Jack back to health but his memory fails to return. But she must keep him hidden, for if anyone gets wind that he is staying there she may find herself in a world of trouble. For she lives in German occupied territory.
There is so much more to this tale of two people who shouldn't be together in wartime. It enhances the story first told in book one "Sarah's Choice" and paves the way for the final in the trilogy "Rose's Fight". We rejoin those we met in the first book, though some do take more of a back seat this time round as it is Jack and Louise's story as well as a little of Rose's.
I look forward to reading the final book in this trilogy in the coming months and what awaits Rose in her time as the focus.
As always, I love Rosie Clarke's storytelling and transporting me back to that era.
I would like to thank #RosieClarke, #BoldwoodBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #LouisesWar in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Rosie loves shoes, especially those impossibly high heels you can buy and has a gorgeous pair of Jimmy Choos but can't wear them so they sit on the mantlepiece.
Rosie also writes under the name of Anne Herries and Linda Sole.
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