As a huge fan of historical fiction and British things, I couldn't wait to get my hands on SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE by Jennifer Robson. I was expecting to find a solid, warm novel with a good romance and a war background. However, SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE turned out to be so much more than that, and I couldn't be happier.

In this story, war is very real. To say Robson paints the war well would be an injustice, because this is no artificial portrait of a few years of battle (well, being that it IS fictional does make it artificial, but my point is that it feels much realer than a lot of historical war novels). This is a very harsh and blunt look at the reality of the first World War. You see the tragedy of it just as the main character, Lily does. You see the destruction not merely on the worldwide level as we so often see it, but on the personal level. The level where Lily worries for her own brother's safety, deals with her love interest's exhaustion from performing surgeries on the soldiers all day, and even beyond that, her own struggle with trying to drive the ambulance bus back and forth from the battle field to the hospital as quickly and efficiently as possible. It throws you right into the very heart of a very possible life at the time, and it gives you a feeling of deep meaning and compassion.

Right alongside that horrible, but terrifically shown, setting, Robson gives readers a beautiful romance between Lily and Robbie. Their road to each other isn't easy, but it is entirely gripping. Their small bubble of love and hope, though very shaky at times, pulls you by the heart and squeezes until the very end. Reading their journey is moving and mesmerizing, and I am very content with how things turn out in the end for the main characters.

As much as I love SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, I do heavily wish there had been more closure on the secondary character, Charlotte's end. I really like her as a character and friend to Lily, and I was hoping for a little hint at how her own love life would turn out. Even so, that in no way stops me from loving SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE and recommending it to any historical fiction reader, but it is the one thing I wish had been put in there.

Book Summary