Love in a Time of War (The Three Fry Sisters, 1)
It is 1913 in London, and the three Fry sisters—Cecelia, Jessie and Etta—are young women looking forward to their futures. The eldest, Cecelia, is serious and committed to the suffragette cause but has fallen in love with her German tutor, Max. Level-headed Jessie is keen to become an army nurse as a way of breaking loose and seeing the world, while her artistic twin Etta is fascinated with all things Bohemian and the Bloomsbury Group. Their parents, Christina and Gerald, have concerns about each of their daughters when the outbreak of war changes everything.
Cecelia must suppress her loss and yearning for Max as she takes photographs and writes important articles for the British newspapers. Etta falls in love with Carlo, an impoverished artist, and elopes with him to Italy. Jessie faces personal challenges in an Egyptian hospital while nursing the injured from the Mediterranean and Gallipoli campaigns.
All these characters are likeable, even with their flaws and foibles. Christina’s stiff reserve hides her own secret past in Italy, and the girls’ father, Gerald, is particularly endearing. There is sadness and joy, and the historical details are all well-handled, touching on lesser-known aspects of the era, such as the growing unrest in Egypt under British rule and the ordinary lives of female munitions workers on the British home front.
Overall, this is a highly enjoyable and absorbing romantic read, but its main shortcoming is too many coincidences or chance encounters that the novel doesn’t need to support its already fine construction. This is the first book in a trilogy, and it will be interesting to see what happens next in the tangled lives of the charming Fry sisters.
