Dark Harvest: Seasons of War, Book 2
Dark Harvest, the second book in a quartet exploring life in a small Sussex town during the Great War, takes place over the course of 1915. The main story arc focuses on Caroline Lilley as she struggles to reconcile the roles expected of her as the daughter of the rector and the future daughter-in-law of the squire with her desire to help the war effort by organising women’s labour to save the harvest.
Myers included aspects of the war which have now been forgotten but which would have been well-known to characters at the time, and the historical details are well-researched and for the most part accurate, but sometimes are inserted rather awkwardly into the story. We see little of some of the more interesting characters, such as Caroline’s sister and aunt (a jilted, heartbroken teenager and a militant suffragette) working on the front lines in Belgium, echoing Marie Chisholm and Elsie Knocker, which feels a missed opportunity. The novel follows a soap-opera like structure, shifting scenes frequently and often abruptly, and changing viewpoints sometimes mid-sentence. Myers clearly has no lack of imagination, but the novel would have been better served by focusing on fewer characters, and developing a narrative with more fluidity. For fans of Downton Abbey – but start with the first volume. (Reprinted from 1997 edition, written under the name Alice Carr. – ed.)
