After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson
I picked this up on a whim at the library, not entirely certain what to expect from it. The main character, Charlotte, is a Vicar's daughter who was a nurse in the Great War, educated at Oxford (though not allowed a degree, because 1910s), and now works at a constituency, where she also worked before the war. Between Oxford and her first turn as an assistant at the constituency, she was also a governess, and kinda-sorta-maybe fell in love with her pupil's entirely class inappropriate brother, Edward.
Reading it, I almost felt like I was reading two books.
The first book was about a woman determined to help people whose lives had been ruined by the war, who meets a reformer newsman who has her write for his paper so that she can speak out for marginalized people and the injustices the poor and women faced during and after wartime.
The second book was a romance about a woman who helps a man she was in love with recover physically and emotionally from the war. You'd think they'd go together easily, and they should, but for one thing. As a part of Edward's recover, he and Charlotte move into an isolated cottage where he can be almost completely free of civilization and recover in peace. Edward's family is in a position to have an isolated cottage with people who can drop by just often enough to provide for his and Charlotte's basic needs, and to pay all of Charlotte's wages and help ensure that her job is still waiting for her when she gets back.
The narrator and main character of the first book would be understanding and nonjudgemental, but also extremely aware of just how many social and economic privileges were involved in Edward's treatment, and aware that there were hundreds of men with Edward's problems who couldn't get the care he had had, who didn't have the resources to arrange to have a family friend as a private nurse AND secure her future employment, who don't have access to isolated cottages and who have to work to support their families and live with 5 other people in a two room apartment.
I mean, I'm all for the PTSD and undiagnosed injuries and reconnecting with an old quasi-flame, but where was the social justice oriented reformer from the main book?
I mean, it was good, and is apparently a sequel to a book about Edward's sister/Charlotte's former pupil, and I'm going to read that too, I just felt like two books were merged into one and didn't make an important connection.
Reading it, I almost felt like I was reading two books.
The first book was about a woman determined to help people whose lives had been ruined by the war, who meets a reformer newsman who has her write for his paper so that she can speak out for marginalized people and the injustices the poor and women faced during and after wartime.
The second book was a romance about a woman who helps a man she was in love with recover physically and emotionally from the war. You'd think they'd go together easily, and they should, but for one thing. As a part of Edward's recover, he and Charlotte move into an isolated cottage where he can be almost completely free of civilization and recover in peace. Edward's family is in a position to have an isolated cottage with people who can drop by just often enough to provide for his and Charlotte's basic needs, and to pay all of Charlotte's wages and help ensure that her job is still waiting for her when she gets back.
The narrator and main character of the first book would be understanding and nonjudgemental, but also extremely aware of just how many social and economic privileges were involved in Edward's treatment, and aware that there were hundreds of men with Edward's problems who couldn't get the care he had had, who didn't have the resources to arrange to have a family friend as a private nurse AND secure her future employment, who don't have access to isolated cottages and who have to work to support their families and live with 5 other people in a two room apartment.
I mean, I'm all for the PTSD and undiagnosed injuries and reconnecting with an old quasi-flame, but where was the social justice oriented reformer from the main book?
I mean, it was good, and is apparently a sequel to a book about Edward's sister/Charlotte's former pupil, and I'm going to read that too, I just felt like two books were merged into one and didn't make an important connection.