Firstly, thank you to Mantle books for my review copy. A beautiful cover on the proof copy made me take it home, it is not my usual style of read... but I just kept stroking the book (yes, I do this), I had already taken it to my heart. A wonderful read, although heart breaking in places. Set in WW1 it really takes you through the issues they had to face daily. My husband pointed out as I finished the book that he knew I had loved it as it seems I had been silently reading for hours... The ending was so .... just simply a stunning piece of literature - please read it!

Beautifully written story about WO I but not about the battle fields but about a field hospital in Eastern Europe. A story about the tragedy of war, coming of age, love, guilt and atonement. The book pulled me in, the characters moved me and I will remember it for a long time. The atrocities of the war are horrid but written in a subdued way so that it is just bearable. A book which makes you sad that you have ended it. Definitely a place in the top 10 best books ever read.

Some writers are economical with their use of descriptions be able to bring the horrors of their stories to life. Daniel Mason was able to show us the horrors of the First World War from behind the battle fields. We read the story of Lucius, young medical student sent to remote hospital in Eastern Europe to tend to the wounded with the help of a nurse named Sister Margarete. The atmospheric, intense story is able to convey to us the conditions the medical staff worked and the devastating state of soldiers both physically and mentally. I must say that this is one of my favourite books of the year, unsettling , dramatic and perfect in its message about how devastating war is. I would definitely recommend this book to read.

I’m new to books and this book made me lightly fall in love with reading, trying out some other books by Daniel mason. Hopefully as amazing as this

The younger son of a minor Polish aristocratic family decides to study medicine in Vienna in the years immediately preceding the First World War. His results on the purely theoretical course are outstanding but his clinical experience is limited to removing wax from a single patient’s ear. On the outbreak of war he enlists as a medical doctor and is sent to a remote field hospital near the Galician front. When he arrives he is greeted by the nursing sister a young nun who is the only practitioner in the semi-ruined church which makes up the hospital. This church is packed with wounded soldiers, many of whom have had recent surgery, including successful amputations. Who has performed the surgery? What is the new doctor, entirely lacking in practical skills to do? Many years ago I read Daniel Mason’s first novel, The Piano Tuner, a terrific debut set in Victorian Burma, which owed much to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. On the strength of that novel I could not wait to read this. A doctor himself, the author is highly experienced in neurological disorders caused by conflict trauma; but he is also a brilliant and inventive novelist and I was not in the least disappointed by this tale. Its complex and moving plot owes a debt to Doctor Zhivago, but also packs many original shocks and surprises and a love story which defies expectation. This is a strong contender for my novel of the year.