Well=crafted and thoughtful, _Wake_ expresses the grief not only for those who fought in wars but those who remained behand and then dealt with the aftermath of what war had done to their soldiers. The three definitions of "wake" are so perfect for this title.

War. Many have their own sense of loss or tale of heartbreak and pain. Yet this book manages to bring this personal pain of the characters to a level so real, the reader feels the loss and pain as their own. Beautifully written and emotionally told, Wake is both a story of loss and war and survival.

“And she is alive. For what? She has endured. Is enduring. Killing time.” A lovely, elegiac novel about the ongoing effects of World War I on three English women who were left behind. The narrative, set over five days in 1920, interweaves their three plot strands (which eventually intersect in unexpected ways) with the transport of the remains of the Unknown Warrior from France to London.

“Compassion is a swamp. It’s better not to get stuck in it,” Evelyn thinks – but this is about how compassion elevates us above the fray, even in a world where “War wins...And it keeps on winning, over and over again.”

Wake (I love that polysemous title) reminded me most of Sarah Waters’s The Night Watch, though there are also touches of the two most recent series of Downton Abbey. This is a remarkably strong debut; I look forward to what Anna Hope will come up with next.