NEW RELEASE
The Poppy Factory - Liz Trenow (2014)
Jess has just returned from Afghanistan where she's served as a medic and adjusting to normal life on civvy street with boyfriend Nate is proving to be a struggle. When Jess is given her great-grandmother Rose's diaries, charting her life with her demobbed husband Alfie at the end of World War I, she finds a surprising parallel between her own experiences and those of her great-grandfather. Can the place that managed to give him back his life - The Poppy Factory - do the same one hundred years later for Jess? Weaving the historical with the modern, Liz Trenow captures two very vivid stories about the after-effects of war. Rather than alternating chapters though from Jess and Rose, the story is structured into larger chunks and I wasn't sure that this was the most effective way of telling the stories or giving equal weight to the characters. Nonetheless both stories are interesting and moving, not least because The Poppy Factory that features in both is a real charity and donations are being made to the charity for every sale of the book. It was a shame that the book didn't go just a bit further into the future in Jess's life but overall the book is a fitting reminder of the casualties of war and testament to the work of charities such as The Poppy Factory. (JC)
