August 1914 saw the opening salvos of the “War to End All Wars,” a conflict blithe enlistees in England believed would be over by Christmas. Instead, the war was to last four long years, entrap thousands in the stalemate of trench warfare, decimate a generation of young men and change society forever.
Most books dealing with the war focus on the soldiers or the nurses, doctors and support staff who served them. In this month’s column, we look at fictional portraits of how this cataclysm changed the lives of several home-front protagonists.
Penny Vincenzi’s NO ANGEL, first of the three-book family saga, features beautiful, controlling Celia Lytton, daughter of wealthy aristocrats who is not above using any means, including getting pregnant, to force her family into allowing her to marry the man she wants, Oliver Lytton. To her husband’s dismay, Celia soon discovers that managing her own household isn’t challenging enough, and with her sister-in-law’s collusion, she insinuates herself more and more into the publishing business his family runs. The story follows Celia, her husband and growing family, along with the destitute young woman she brings into the family, through the great events of the time, from the shock of the Titanic and the Lusitania sinkings to the work taken over by women once the war begins—and the struggles to readjust once those who survive return and want newly-independent women to return to their traditional roles. From the glittering ballrooms of the rich to the tenements of the poor, life after war will never be the same—a truth Vincenzi illustrates through the lens of one family.
(For those fascinated by the Lyttons, the next book in the series, SOMETHING DANGEROUS, set in the late 20-30’s, featured Celia’s twin daughters; the final volume, INTO TEMPTATION, set in post WWII, focuses on the child Celia rescued from the slums.)
Set in Cornwall, THE HIDDEN LETTERS by Lorna Cook begins in 1914, when all England is caught up in speculation about a coming war. Cordelia feels sheltered at Pencallick House, where she and newly hired landscape architect Isaac form an immediate bond, a relationship kept secret from her wealthy family. With war imminent, Isaac teaches Cordelia to care for the gardens, a task she takes on when Isaac and the other young men leave for the war. She lives for the letters he sends, worries when they cease, and is devastated when her brother confirms that Isaac is among the fallen. But war has taken not just her lover; an entire way of life is ending for the gentry, and as other women also must do, Cordelia begins to turn what was a hobby into a profession to maintain her home and sustain her family.
THE VICTORY GARDEN by Rhys Bowen explores life on the countryside home front from another perspective. After the Australian pilot she fell for is sent back to the front (and over the objections of her middle-class parents) Emily Bryce joins the Women’s Land Army, determined to help the war effort. While she enjoys the comradery of new friends Ruby, Maud, and Daisy, her world turns upside down when she learns her lover has been killed—and she is carrying their child. Through the Land Army, she meets Lady Charlton, an elderly woman who needs someone to care for her estate. Posing as a war widow, Emily moves into the caretaker’s cottage–and discovers the journals kept by a former resident, a skilled herbalist. Fascinated, she immerses herself in herbal lore, burying her grief and gradually becoming a healer consulted by the whole community, reprising the role of the woman who once lived there. Bowen shows the war as a catalyst that brings a young woman out of her protected environment and hardens her to master challenges she would never have believed herself capable of conquering.
In our final selection, WE THAT ARE LEFT, Clare Clark mirrors the end of a way of life in her story of the Melville family and their great estate, Ellinghurst. The patriarch’s pride in his family lineage forbids their associating with those of lesser status, even as the estate crumbles as rents fall and men from the house and village go off to war. The parents focus their adoration on son and heir, Theo, the golden boy who can do no wrong, while their mother’s scholarly godson Oskar hangs on the periphery of the family. Wanting to escape her family’s expectations that she marry well, rebellious Jessica flees to London; her bookish sister Phyllis yearns to study at university. But when war claims Theo’s life, Jessica is reluctantly pulled back to Ellinghurst and finds, despite herself, that the ties to home and the urge to protect it run deeper than she thought. Clark’s story weaves in many of the great changes that ended the dominance of landed aristocracy and the painful emergence of women’s rights, technological innovation, and increasing freedom that formed the post-war world.
Ready for a deeper look into home front life? Any of this month’s selections will provide entertainment, information, and a unique glimpse at a vanished world.
About Julia Justiss
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
Award-winning romance author Julia Justiss, who has written more than thirty historical novels and novellas set in the English Regency and the American West, just completed her first contemporary series set in the fictional Hill Country town of Whiskey River, Texas.
A voracious reader who began jotting down plot ideas for Nancy Drew novels in her third grade spiral, Julia has published poetry and worked as a business journalist.
She and her husband live in East Texas, where she continues to craft the stories she loves. Check her website for details about her books, chat with her on social media, and follow her on Bookbub and Amazon to receive notices about her latest releases.
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