Having been bequeathed money to finish her education, 17-year-old Eva leaves her troubled home to attend finishing school. It is 1913, and World War I looms on the horizon. There, she finds friendship and love. When war begins, Eva will be pressured by her family to choose between saving her sister or being with the man she loves. Her choice and its repercussions impact several lives as the war goes on.

While it started off a bit slow, I could not stop reading to see how it would end. The book delves into heavy topics, the challenges faced by women at the time, the harsh realities of war, the mental impacts of war, and the consequences of one's actions. I particularly enjoyed the letters exchanged between E and C, and the literary references.

the words on these pages slipped over me and swept me up in the story, the people, the time. i was there with them and rooting for them(well some of them)
war. its never ever ok. and the moments of devastation whip through every aspect of people lives. some more obvious than others. some more talked about than others.
this time we have Eva. who is an inspiring character if ever there was one. her struggles are real. and i felt for her all the way through the book. and not just because of the horror the war bought. because before all that it fall to Eve to suffer the time they were in. where woman get no choice. or are forced into a world that doesnt deserve them! shes also got more on her plate that just the sexist awful times for woman. because Eva has a family that dont care. or care enough to hurt her and hate her. her stepmother is horrid. and i wanted to give Eva a cuddle many times in their interactions. but suddenly Eva is given a chance to leave and she does.
there she meets freedom both in life and in herself. she is loving the study and time at the school.
one such person she meets has a bigger effect. love.
sady Eva is called home. but her and Christopher manage to reconnect.
at this time the country is at war. and here comes the story title white feather into play. Eva hates this practice and all it stands for. but then her sister, being in control of most things in Evas control makes her take a devastating decision. one that impacts Eva and others in far rippling ways to come.
this book was hard and yet at the same time somehow beautiful. it had so much pain in it but also from that so much strength courage and hope was written in there too. and the love story was of course what gives us the greates strength there ever is. and that anything really, can,will be,might be survivable if we have that one pure thing...love.

An incredibly beautiful novel! I am not one to read romantic novels (apart from the classic ones such as Cyrano de Bergerac or Wuthering Heights), but if I know Susan Lanigan wrote one, it must be good. And it is. The brillance lies in her characters, their dialogues and the relationships between them which are so vividly real! Not only one sees them, but also one hears them. They have a demanding, deep and wonderfully human presence (I loved Sybil and Lucia whom I remembered from the author's novel "Lucia's War"). The storyline is tearfully emotional reflecting the social hypocrisy of the times. The reader lives the plot along its characters, fully immersed. A beautiful novel which I highly recommend.
I received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I have voluntarily written an honest review.