Blue days and fair - Lorraine Bateman

It is 1915. In occupied Belgium, British nurse Edith Cavell is awaiting trial. Her co-conspirator, nurse Marion Drake, has eluded capture and escaped to England. But in honouring a promise she made, Marion follows a path that sets her at odds with her family and threatens her own future.Against the backdrop of World?War 1, the lives of civilians and soldiers entwine as American soldiers arrive on the battlefields and captured English soldiers struggle to survive in prison camps. A deadly influenza epidemic threatens the lives of everyone...With so much attention paid to the horrors of trench warfare, the effects of war on the lives of others has often been overshadowed. In Blue Days and Fair, the fortunes of two soldiers, one a prisoner of war, the other an American officer, are entwined with those of an English nurse and a French school teacher. The war puts all of them in peril as they struggle to deal with the challenges and dangers that are thrown at them. Within this absorbing story is a superbly researched and fascinating backdrop that includes historical characters such as Herbert Hoover and Edith Cavell. Blue Days and Fair continues to explore the themes originally touched upon in the authors' first book, At Midnight in a Flaming Town (Karnac Books), and follows the same characters in the later years of the war.