This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. It’s rare to have a book affect me so deeply and bring so many emotions to the surface. This is absolutely a 5-star book.

This was my first book by Mason, but I was very excited for a book about WWI. This book tells Lucius, a young man who was studying to be a doctor who was pulled into the war as a medical doctor during WWI. Whilst serving at a small medical unit, he meets a nun named Margarete who teaches him the practicalities of war medicine and whom he falls in love with. Their love is forbidden, but after Lucius treats Margarete's wounds, she succumbs to her own feelings. They are separated and Lucius works diligently years over the passing years to find her. Firstly, I really enjoyed Lucius as a character. I felt his voice was so present throughout the whole story. I like Margarete too, though I was saddened by how her character ultimately played out. I think the second to the last act was a weak part of the book. That transition between Lucius and Margarete's conclusion and Lucius trying to find his way without her and post the war. I found the specific examples of the medicine and the non-shying away from the war's medicine the best part of this book though. I literally found myself squirming at the description of the soldier with venereal disease and his treatment. It was a lot to take in. But it made it all the more worthwhile. I think my biggest letdown of this book was the ending. Lucius' constancy was such a great draw to his character and then to have Margarete not follow through? Oh, it was absolutely heartbreaking. I am sure it was a realistic reality of war, but it was so hard to watch Lucius go through everything. And then this? And for what? I might read Mason again after this, especially as I so appreciate someone taking on a story from WWI.

Lucius is a medical student at the outbreak of WWI. There is a shortage of doctors so medical students are encouraged to enlist. Believing it will be a valuable experience, he does so.He is sent to a remote field hospital in the Carpathians close to the front. To his dismay, he discovers, when he arrives, that the previous doctor and all the nurses but one have left. It is fortunate for him that she has been acting in the doctor's stead since he has no surgical experience and most of his expected medical work is amputations. Under her guidance, he quickly becomes adept at it. Once the men are healthy enough, they are to be sent on to a better equipped hospital and, likely, eventually back to the front. Then a soldier is brought to the hospital who appears to have no wounds yet he is stiff and completely unresponsive. Lucius tries every recommended remedy only to have them fail. In desperation, he tries a medication that, until then, seemed to have no use. Surprisingly, the man begins to recover. Lucius is so fascinated with the case that he refuses to send him on, hoping to continue working with him. This decision will have devastating consequences not only for the soldier but for Lucius himself.

It took me a while to get into The Winter Soldier by author Daniel Mason. After a few stops and starts, I finally got far enough into it to get caught up in the story and once I did, I couldn't put it down. Although the story is, at heart, a historical romance, it was the parts about the war, the soldiers and civilians, the deprivations, the local displays of patriotism, but most of all, the depiction of medicine at the time, the fears and prevalence of diseases like typhoid in the hospitals, the devastation of the flu, and the remedies that now seem so strange like oatmeal to treat pneumonia. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who, like me, loves learning real history while reading historical fiction.

<i>Thanks to Netgalley and Little Brown and Company for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review</i>

“One of the conflicts doctors face in wartime is that they are often asked to do something that is against their healing instincts, because curing a soldier and returning him to the front may mean sending him to his death. This complicates our oath to ‘do no harm.’ I wanted to examine a doctor faced by such choices.”
Interview with Daniel Mason

Winter Soldier is a riveting story of a medical student and a mysterious nun, Margarete, thrown together in a makeshift hospital in an abandoned church in the Austro-Hungarian region of World War I. With a pew for a surgical table and forays to the woods for sustenance, they compassionately offer care to the limbless and horrifically disfigured soldiers in their care. In time, it became a love story. In time, it became a fight for individual choice vs. a doctor’s need to pursue medical care beyond the scope of his duties.

Twenty-two year old, Lucius Krzelewski, was born to a wealthy Polish aristocratic family living in Vienna. His father, an ardent patriot, spent his days reliving the glory days of the fierce soldiers known as the Polish Winged Hussars. He did his best efforts to instill that military fervor in his youngest son, but Lucius showed no aptitude or interest in becoming a soldier.

Lucius wanted to become a doctor and pursued his dream. He found the study of neurology and the workings of the mind particularly intriguing, but overall, by his sixth year, he was a frustrated medical student. All books and no hands-on patient contact. When war broke out, medical students with six of their eight years training completed were allowed to enlist as medical lieutenants and work alongside doctors as assistants.

Shortly after enlisting, Lucius received several brief assignments with disappointing duties. His fifth assignment was to the front lines of the war, to a place he was led to believe was a fully equipped Regimental Hospital of the Third Army in the Carpathian mountains in the tiny village of Lemnowice. A duty assignment that assured access to surgeries and trauma training. Lucius was about to face a side of humanity he would never learn from textbooks.

Standing before the door to the Regimental Hospital, a small bombed wooden church constructed of rough-hewn logs, he wondered if he should just turn around and head back to Vienna.

He knocked on the door. An eye appeared in the narrow window.
Krzelewski. Medical lieutenant. Fourteenth Regiment. Third Army.
The door opened. A nursing sister with a rifle dangling from her hand stood before him.
May I speak to the supervising physician? . . .
She replied . . . Didn’t you just say you’re him?

Lucius, stepping into the church, was about to meet the one person that would change his life in many ways, Sister Margarete of the Sisters of Saint Catherine. The diminutive nun with the mental strength of a Winged Hussar held true to her position when typhus claimed the lives of 3 of the nurses, one doctor fled from cowardice and the last fled in the middle of the night from losing his mind. Aided by the hand of God, Margarete, exhibiting her superior sense of practicality, did what had to be done in the two months she was alone.

Since December, there have been forty amputations, on twenty-three men. . .
And who, Sister Margarete, has performed the amputations?
He has.
And whose had was he directing?
She held up her little hands.

The little nun, with respect, trained the medical student, and together, with nothing more than, scalpel, morphine and ether did what they could to save the men that streamed through the church door. Until one day, a winter soldier arrived curled in a fetal position in a wheelbarrow. The man could not move or speak although he had no physical injuries. His arrival changes the dynamics of the story.

Blogger’s Comments
This review has given me fits for days. I find it hard to describe Lucius’ love for science, his discovery of deep personal strengths and tenacity, and his need to accept that the needs of the many out-weigh the intense needs of one in war. And dear Margarete, we never learn her secrets, but we are privy to her humor, her intense compassion, and total acceptance of the present. If you will permit me, I see a fiery young Shirley McClain with a soft heart and Kenny Roger’s ability to “know when to hold ’em , know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away.”

Highly recommended. Thank you, Netgalley, for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

This is a book that I know will be sticking with me for years to come. The depictions of the privations of wartime life, the limited medical treatment available at the time, the complexity of the charac ters, and the tensions in the relationships among them make this a book you won't want to put down until you've completed it.

"The Winter Soldier" is such a refreshing piece of historical fiction. In a time that is abundant with WWII narratives, it's always nice to see something that strays from the norm, it was great to read something different. I also loved that there wasn't an abundance of warfare, which I can find makes a book drag at times. Overall, a really great read.

A great example of historical fiction that brings to a life a forgotten aspect of the Great War and its effects on the people who fought in it and tried to survive in their daily existence.

4.5 stars rounded to 5 stars

I have expanded my reading horizons this year by being open to other genres and writing styles that are rather new for me. By doing so, I have read a number of books that I would not have even considered just months prior. I’m amazed to think what I would be missing by not taking some chances!

I was attracted to Winter Soldier because of its title and cover and because of the medical theme. It looked more literary that what I usually read so I downloaded the first chapter to take a look. Yes, it is literary, but I was intrigued from the start.

This is a beautifully written book with beautiful people and a beautiful plot. Being set during World War I, it is, of course, fraught with difficult scenes and has a continual overlying pall. What makes the beautiful people beautiful is not their appearances, but their souls. What makes the beautiful plot beautiful is certainly not the killing and the maiming and the horrendous suffering of the times, but the journey taken by our protagonist, Polish medical student Lucius Krzelewski.

Lucius has laid hands on only two patients by the time he is summoned to be the sole physician at a military field hospital, which is set in an old church in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains. The setting is primitive. His help consists of one nurse (Margarete), a couple of orderlies and a cook. The learning curve for Lucius is steep in many ways. We follow Lucius for the next four years as he struggles with innumerable hardships, deep regrets, and matters of the heart.

The language, I must admit, is lush. Fortunately, I read the book on an e-reader, which allowed me to quickly check definitions of one to two words on each page. I was so pulled into the setting and the times that I was eager to “learn the language” and didn’t mind the breaks in flow to look up things up. I decided to take my time.

Lucius’ character is so well developed. I agonized with him, cheered his small victories, and fervently wished him peace and happiness. I won’t say anything about the end except that it is good, very good. But it isn’t Hollywood, also a good thing. There are a few things left unanswered, but I found that was okay too. Like real life, which this book certainly is.

A number of reviewers found this a very hard read. I didn’t think that, perhaps because of my extensive experience in the medical field. All I’m saying is don’t let the reviews prevent you from at least starting this novel. If you can get through it, and many have, it will likely be one you will remember for a very long time. I know I will.

Many thanks to Net Galley, Little Brown and Company, and Daniel Mason for an advanced copy of Winter Soldier. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

*4-4.5 stars. An excellent novel of historical fiction set during WWI. Lucius is the son of a wealthy Polish family living in Vienna. His parents are confounded when he decides to go to school to become a doctor. When he is told he could get his medical degree early if he volunteers to serve in the war effort, he jumps at the chance even though he has had little hands on experience.

After many delays, he is finally posted to a field hospital in Galicia in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains. He assumes he will be working with a team of doctors, but when he arrives he learns it will be just him and a Catholic nun who has been working alone since the last doctor took off. It is painfully obvious that he has no clue what to do and Sister Margarete takes him under her wing.

So just who is 'the winter soldier,' you ask? He is a patient named Sergeant Jozsef Horvath, an Hungarian from Budapest, who is brought in in a wheelbarrow and seems to be suffering from nervous shock. Lucius and Margarete work together to try to help him recover. But Horvath will come to haunt Lucius long after he is taken away.

"Now, with each day that passes, I feel more and more like some of my soldiers, who seemed forever stuck in their eternal winters."

If you are looking for a WWI story to read in honor of the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, this would be an excellent choice. It has drama, adventure, a bit of gore, and even some romance.

I received an arc of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley for my honest review. Many thanks for the opportunity.

Unfortunately this was a "did not finish" for me. I know that it is brilliant writing, I know that the characters are well developed, I just couldn't "feel" myself there, in that environment.

I know that this book has a huge audience and perhaps some day I might come back to it. It's a long book and I just lost patience with it.

Since I DNF it I will not review it on any public media or websites.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.

Dorie

I really liked how the the writing style changed slightly with the focus of the scene. If it was a dialogue, you could feel the accent of the words, and at first I thought I was reading a translation because the sentence structure was so abbreviated rythm. Then I realized I was reading it as if the person were speaking Austrian or Polish,. When the setting was the important piece, the language took on a much more expansive, descriptive tone. Although this story is set in the Austro Hungarian Empire, particularly Galacia and Vienna, much of it's medical theme It is easily comparable to Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese, This book will keep you reading until you finish, and i am so glad to have had a chance to read on netgalley, and i know many in my book club to whom I will recommend.

Lucius Krzelewski was born into a wealthy Polish family that moved to Vienna to chase down even more economic opportunity. He never fit into his mother’s version of society; awkward and stammering, he found social events a form of torture more than anything else. Instead, Lucius found comfort and confidence in the realm of science. As a young adult he headed to medical school to become a doctor.

Midway through his education, World War I broke out. Austria joined the fighting, and eventually Lucius enlisted, hoping to treat real patients rather than just learning about them. But he got more than he bargained for. Sent to the Carpathian Mountains on the former border of Hungary and Poland—currently Ukraine—Lucius thinks he’ll be on a team of doctors in a hospital. What he finds instead is a hospital run by a nun volunteering as a nurse with a supporting team of orderlies.

With time, experience, and Sister Margarete’s instruction, he becomes the war doctor the military expected him to be, finding a whole new community among the people working at the hospital. He falls in love and begins to feel that he has become who he was meant to be. When a soldier with some unusual needs comes through, Lucius believes he is the only one who can help him and makes a decision that haunts him for years to come.

Medicine, war, and romance (some sexuality included) come together in a multilayered novel that explores the shifting borders of countries, the shifting alliances of war, and the shifting understanding of self. Lucius, lonely and heartbroken, drowns himself in work while desperately longing for forgiveness and atonement.

The Winter Soldier is a well-written, absorbing novel that delves into the motivations for what we do and our limited ability to understand them, showing empathy to both Lucius and that aspect of the human condition in all of us. It also addresses the painful emotional effects of war, describing PTSD in characters who have never heard of such a condition. (Little, Brown & Co.)

There is something about World War I in the pantheon of war horrors that remains particularly brutal and pointless. Daniel Mason's realistic novel illustrates this very effectively.

Lucius is a Polish medical student when war breaks out. He allows himself to be talked by a friend into joining the military, hoping to gain valuable field experience. But what really happens is that he ends up in a small hospital located in a church, and almost instantly is shown to be what he is -- an inexperienced but well-meaning young man from a very posh background.

He learns most of what he will come to know about doctoring from Marguerete, a nun who has been the sole medical contact in their small field hospital. She is steady and strong, and has been performing amputations and serious treatments on her own. Somewhat inevitably, Lucius falls in love.

The book takes a long time to get to this point. The early sections deal with his odd and grotesque medical studies and then eventually move him close to the battlefield and the wounded. Lucius is an unusual character -- he has a certain sweetness and naivete but is also highly intelligent and sensitive. On the very night that he declares his love to Marguerete, an invading force separates them and sends Lucius right into the middle of a particularly intense, violent and crazed battle. He is swept along with the tide of war and doesn't return to the church hospital, which also was evacuated.

He searches for the nurse, but time passes, the war ends and eventually at his mother's urging, he marries and attempts to move on with his life. In addition to his yearning for his love, he battles guilt over his treatment of a young artist with shell shock who is severely beaten because Lucius is reluctant to have him evacuated.

Ultimately Lucius realizes he must try once more to search for the lost threads of his love and relationships if he is going to be able to move forward. Against all odds, he is able to return to the little village where the hospital was and tracks down Marguerete in a tender and searing final scene.

A brutal look at a lesser known theater of World War I. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

beautifully written novel on the consequence of good intentions gone wrong.. The characters were beautifully drawn. I thoroughly enjoyed this book

A very tedious read. I wanted to like this book because I love historical novels. The author seemed to be in love with words and with his setting;the story seem to be an afterthought.

A stunner of a book on many fronts. So much life and humanity packed into so relatively few pages. Thank you

4 stars Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown and Company for the chance to read and review this book. Published September 11, 2018.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book. I felt it read like a foreign dictionary. I was disappointed. I so liked Mason's book The Piano Tuner and was excited to get a chance to read this one. I had so much trouble starting this novel that I almost set it aside. I realize now that having done that would have been a loss for me.

Lucius, dreams of being a surgeon. Much to his Mothers disappointment he enters the military during WW1. He ends up in an abandoned church being used as a field hospital in Lemnowice, in the Carpathian Mountains. He expects his training to continue, but instead finds himself as the only surgeon there, a surgeon unsure of himself and thoroughly inexperienced. Under deplorable conditions he finds Sister Margarete in charge. Under her tutelage, Lucius learns quickly and takes over his role as surgeon.

Shattering presence, heart wrenching, unconscionable pain and suffering, all vivid for the reader to visualize. This story is plot-driven, is full of action, springs forth with brutal detail, and may not end as you desire. However, it truly has the mark of Mason, excellence.

I am thrilled that I stopped resisting The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason. I was leery of delving into another WWI novel, knowing the despair and suffering I would encounter. When I began reading I couldn't stop and stayed up late to finish it.

The novel tells the story of Lucius Krzelewski of Vienna, an inexperienced young medical student who shows much promise but is frustrated by the limitations of medical school. When war breaks out, a friend convinces Lucius that he can get first-hand experience by enlisting as an army doctor.

Lucius is sent to a remote hospital on the Eastern Front. The doctors abandoned the hospital when typhus broke out. In charge is a nurse, a nun named Sister Margarete and under her tutelage, Lucius learns how to doctor and how to love.

Lucius knows his job is to patch the men up so they can be returned to the war. He wants to protect the men in his care whose wounds are unseen but who the army deems fit for service. One soldier particularly affects Lucius and Margarete, a beautiful artist who arrives in winter, so traumatized he cannot stop screaming.

The storyline and characters kept my interest but I also appreciated how I learned so much about the war on the Eastern Front, the level of medical practice and knowledge at the time, and the shifting political landscape of Eastern Europe.

I have read so many terrific WWI novels in the past few years. So much has changed in 100 years. And yet, so much remains the same.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Lucius Krzelewski was a young medical student in Vienna who enlisted in the army in WWI to act as a medical assistant, but on his first assignment he discovered that there was no doctor, only a nurse Sister Margarete, a cook and some orderlies. Lucius had never treated patients but he quickly learned from Margarete. One of those patients was a shell shocked man named Horvath. The treatment that Lucius gave to Horvath seemed to be helping him so Lucius conspired to keep Horvath under his care, despite Horvath's desire to be sent elsewhere. This decision had dire consequences for Horvath. Lucius fell in love with Margarete (about whose past we learn absolutely nothing), but the two were eventually separated. Lucius spent the rest of the book feeling remorse about Horvath and searching for Margarete.

I loved "The Piano Tuner" by this author, but I'm afraid that this book left me completely unmoved. The beginning when Lucius was in medical school was very slow and the story didn't speed up that much after he enlisted. The book is not for the squeamish because there was a lot of detail about medical procedures and diseases. There is also quite a bit about lice. However, my main problem with the book is that it was so plodding and had a very anticlimactic ending. <spoiler>Margarete actually has a personality in this book, which was a good thing, but the "romance" felt obligatory. She was the only woman around so of course Lucius had to love her. But, when a nun suddenly jumps into bed with you without preamble you might want to ask some questions about her past. Ultimately, her character felt like a device to get Lucius to find out what happened to Horvath and thus rid Lucius of his pesky remorse. When the book ended I felt like I had experienced pages and pages of angst for nothing.</spoiler>

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

I’ll start by stating that this wasn’t really a book that I enjoyed but I can appreciate the effort that went into writing it. Historical fiction must require countless hours of research but a book of this magnitude, with its geography, political perspective, and recounting of the time period must have been exhausting. For that alone, I feel it deserves at least four stars. I didn’t give it five stars for several reasons: 1) the beginning was very slow and I found it difficult to connect to the protagonist. 2) the title itself was a little deceiving; the story wasn’t really about “the winter soldier”, although he played a main role in the middle of the book and the characters were ultimately changed because of him. This becomes all the more apparent at the very end. The story really focused on Lucius and his role as a medical student/doctor before, during, and after WWI.