At 350 pages, I almost DNF’ed it. Decided I’d invested so much time I might as well finish. It does pack a punch at the end, but it takes far too long getting there. ( )

A group of Great War soldiers is waiting for orders. During the last skirmishes of the war, men are still dying. Will the men receive orders to retreat or advance? Who will live or who will die? There are two strands to ‘The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing’ by Mary Paulson-Ellis and the title refers to the second. A contemporary man in Edinburgh, an heir hunter, finds a pawn ticket amongst the possessions of Thomas Methven, an old soldier who died alone.
This is a detailed story with many layers and many characters introduced as the two strands are told and hesitantly connected. At times the detail became confusing with so many descriptive repetitions I found myself skipping forwards. Paulson-Ellis writes scenes so well – the soldier’s gambling scene with the chicken is totally believable, and her portrayal of the foundling school in NE England is heart breaking. As Solomon tracks the life story of the deceased soldier, we see flashes of his own story, orphaned at seven and sent to live with his grandfather. Though interesting I found this distracting, it took me away from the story of the soldiers and added even more characters and family trees to remember.
The message is that the debts of the past do not disappear. Captain Godfrey Farthing is waiting, always waiting; to live to die, to advance, to retreat. He is simply trying to keep his men safe to the end of the war, which they suspect may come at any time. But Farthing’s intentions may be wrecked by enemy attack, by orders to attack, or by his own men themselves who are confined and bored. ‘A strange peace was coursing through his veins; that terrible calm that comes when a man knows the end is coming, but not in the way he had imagined when he began.’
Gambling is a continuous theme throughout the WW1 strand, and I lost track of the treasures gambled, won and lost, coveted, stolen and hidden. There are 11 soldiers involved, surely too many. Like ‘The Lord of the Flies’, the boredom of the men, their jealousies, petty rivalries and guns come to dominate their world, as if the war is already over. The treasures they gamble can be the smallest thing which to us may seem irrelevant but in war is crucial. Not monetary value as known at home, but representing an emotional or practical value.
Different rules apply during wartime and items that are significant then are cast into the spotlight when they survive across the generations to be found by modern day relatives. I admit to confusion about who was related to who and perhaps the cutting of a few peripheral characters would help. Given my interest in family history and WW1, I expected to love this book but longed for a firmer editing hand.
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At 350 pages, I almost DNF’ed it. Decided I’d invested so much time I might as well finish. It does pack a punch at the end, but it takes far too long getting there. ( )

Wow! Yes, this is a wow book and I'm pretty sure it has just marched onto my favourite books of the year list.

I'm finding that books set during the First World War are really capturing my attention these days and parts of this book are set in the final days of that conflict when Captain Godfrey Farthing and his comrades are waiting for orders, wondering if they will come before the bells ring to signify the end of the war. Godfrey wants to keep his company safe if at all possible without disobeying orders.

The other strand of the story follows Godfrey's grandson, Solomon, in 2016. He's an heir hunter tasked to find out if a recently deceased man had any next of kin. If books set in World War One are particular favourites for me then most definitely so are genealogical ones with investigations into family trees and long lost relatives.

What a perfect combination, therefore, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing is. It is plotted beautifully so as to tie all the strands in without doing so in a really obvious way. It's a companion piece to The Other Mrs Walker, Mary Paulson-Ellis's first book and I really enjoyed the way characters from the book popped up in this one. As with that first book this is one that ideally needs reading and then reading again to fully slot all the pieces together. I love a book that is like a jigsaw puzzle but it also means that greater concentration is needed and a fair amount of flicking backwards to put it all into its place. That is absolutely not a negative point though as I found it completely enthralling from beginning to end. It's a real voyage of discovery.

This is a big book at just over 500 pages but not for a moment was I tempted to rush it. The author has done a magnificent job at portraying the emotion of the war both through the minds and actions of soldiers at the time and also in looking at what happened afterwards and how the effects rippled down through the generations.

This is my kind of read. Deliciously complex, moving and thoughtful, I spent the last few pages in tears as all the threads were pulled together to the conclusion. Paulson-Ellis is a very talented writer. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. ( )