The Fog of War

The Fog of War (2021) A.L. Lester (Bradfield Trilogy)

Set in England in the summer of 1919.

Dr Sylvia Marks returned to the village where her father had been the local doctor, after the end of the war and her time as a surgeon at Royaumont, where she was later joined by Walter, a nurse she met at Royaumont, after his discharge.

They’d opened up Papa’s surgery in the front rooms of the big house again and she’d launched straight into being Young Dr Marks at the age of thirty-four, ministering to people who remembered her as a baby.

Lucy persuaded her parents to allow her to VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), and eventually became friends with Sylvia. Bored, now she is back in England and once again living with her parents, she reaches out to Sylvia, looking to regain some of her independence.

She’d got over her fear of arduous work at the hospital. Not that she’d ever really had one, but spending a couple of years scrubbing floors and bedpans had changed her perception of appropriate occupation for young ladies of her station for good.

When Arthur Webber starts to decline, for no discernible reason, she assumes cancer, but when she sees something inexplicable, the starts to wonder if the disappearance of the woman she loved on the battlefield might be related to the magic that Arthur claims exists.

I really enjoyed this story. I love learning about bits of history when reading fiction–in this case, e Scottish Women’s Hospital at Royaumont.

I was bothered by one thing, however. Sylvia is (not unreasonably) worried that Anna ended up the same place as Marchant. But after their experiment, she suddenly stops worrying about it. Which honestly made no sense to me, considering one of the things they feared after the experiment.

But aside from that, I enjoyed it.

Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Rating: 7.5/10

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