Thank you for the opportunity read and review this title! I didn't enjoy it as much as I"d hoped, and rather than post a negative review, I chose to not feature it on my blog. I look forward to seeing what new releases you have in store!

Helen Simonson's previous book, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, gently but firmly took on Britain's classism and racism with a charming love story. The Summer Before the War adds in sexism, homophobia, militarism, pacifism, socialism and almost every -ism you could imagine in a book that somehow pulls it off, even as you see the author's hand in this story of a young woman facing adulthood.
Nostalgia is the emotion that colors most of the book, looking back to a time before a World War was even conceivable. There's an intersection between young folks of the upper class and the upper middle class in the bucolic English countryside. Young men and women dreaming of love and duty become caught up in the hard realities of all those "-isms," and their struggles to reconcile them echo to the present day.

I prefer my novels to have invisible authors; perhaps an aside or two is permissible, but in novels I want story to be the key. The timing of outer events, the wider historical ones, felt off to me; the white feather girls seemed to appear way early in the story and they didn't show up in reality until August 1914, the end of summer. But if you were ever a swooning teenager, it's hard not to be lifted out of the story to admire every young poet's longed-for death scene: Noble! Tragic! Beautiful! Even as the tears washed my face, I was congratulating the author for fulfilling this fantasy and pulling it off beyond cliché. You will like this one if you liked her previous book or are an Anglophile!

What a beautiful story about residents of a little English village and their life before (and during...) World War I. You really get to know and love Agatha Kent and her nephews, surgeon-in-training Hugh and poet Daniel, and Beatrice Nash, the new Latin teacher. The town and its residents are delightfully idyllic that summer, and it's a good thing that you are well-invested by the time the war starts because the mood becomes a bit more somber, as it should in the face of such awful events, and you are desperate to know how everything will turn out. Very well written, and also very clean, which I always appreciate. I received an electronic copy of this book in exchange for my opinion, and it is definitely recommended!

We meet Beatrice Nash, who has no family, and ends up in the small village of Rye, as a Latin teacher. Early part of the book moved a little slow. The war starts and things pick up.

Beatrice was treated poorly because she was a woman.

The villagers seem a bit naive in regard to the wear. As things progress, they seem to adapt to their circumstances.

I did enjoy the majority of the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had never read anything by Helen Simonson so, unlike some reviewers who disliked this novel compared to her other work, I had nothing to compare Summer Before the War to. I adored this book! I found the characters beautifully developed and the story was so richly woven. It was interesting to get a glimpse into such an incredible time in history. Definitely recommended!

I only wish Helen Simonson could write faster! Really enjoyed this one.