I'm so glad I went out of my way to read this one (& by out of my way, I mean bought my copy on AmazonUK). I very much enjoyed the story of the de Witts and how they fared during WWI. Celia is the character followed most closely and as she is the youngest in the family, I had moments where watching the family from her perspective reminded me of Atonement (especially in her relationship with Emmeline).

I felt great sorrow and true frustration watching Rudolf and Verena as the reality of their situation kept issuing blows but they were still in denial. To be fair, there wasn't anything that they could have done to mitigate their circumstances and there are far worse things than relying on the world being a rational place & your beloved country treating you fairly as a citizen. These things sadly, have failed people, over & over throughout history. Still, it was painful to read. For Rudolf to find that his chosen country considered him a traitor & inter him for the duration must have been heartbreaking. For Verena to have had to register as an alien because of who she married & have what everyone said was sacrosanct, her birth & English lineage, discounted turns the whole sense & justice of the "system" on its head. I of course felt for Michael, Emmeline & Celia in finding out that they weren't English enough & that what mattered was their paternity which happened to be German. But through it all, I liked how each found ways to participate in making the world a better place. I found Emmeline's choices to be most interesting even though her way infuriated me at times. Michael's time in combat was bittersweet and ended on such a tragic note. Celia's various jobs during the war were interesting even if I didn't quite believe she'd have done all that & even had an offer to be a spy. She was consistently naive and no matter her language skills, that would surely not serve her well in an undercover situation. I don't know what to make of Arthur who was mentioned throughout & only showed up at the very end of everything, the war & the book. And then there's Tom. The servant, friend & possible very close relative to the De Witts in general & problematically to Celia in particular. I can only assume that the next book will delve & clear up that little mystery because Tom & Celia don't have the story right & Mrs. Cotton, for some reason hasn't told her son the truth (that I'm assuming was related in the story by Verena's memories). I also hope the next book explores the fate of Hilde & Johann. Having heard about them, I really want to know how they've fared through the war & what it will all mean now for them as they are in Germany.

I'm definitely going to read the second book in the series. Highly recommended for historical fiction fans & those interested in fiction of the time in particular. ( )

As this it is one hundred years since the first world war there are many books on the shelves covering this terrible time in our history.

This book is the story of one family., the de Witts who have the complication of the father being German at a time when Germany is the enemy.

Told mainly through the eyes of the youngest child Celia we go from a peaceful country estate to the horrors of war. The oldest daughter is excited about her forthcoming marriage and one brother is in Paris with the other at university but through the book we learn of them all as well as the fate of their German father.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which doesn't try to sanitize war and shows how men were affected but also the women who served and home and abroad.

I did feel that the character of Celia seems rather younger at the start of the book than she is but war soon makes her grow up like the young people around her.

The scenes in the trenches were harrowing to read but essential to the story.

I look forward to reading what happens next to the family

I received this book from Goodreads for free in exchange for an honest review.

Good, not fabulous atmospheric story about a German family that gets ostracized from society in England (?) when WWI begins. Reviewed for Booklist. ( )

This is one of the many books set around WW1 that will no doubt be published this year, but sadly not, in my opinion, one of the better ones. I think one of the dangers of writing the country house saga set around this time is that they can end up being quite clichéd and I found that this was the case. I didn't care for the characters and found the whole thing to be overlong. However, I think there were some aspects of the story that were interesting, for instance, the German living in England and the consequences of that as war broke out. I think the WW1 theme and the country house saga have been done more successfully. ( )