The Heroes' Welcome
A Novel
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
April 1919. Six months have passed since the armistice that ended the Great War. But new battles face those who have survived.
Only 23, former soldier Riley Purefoy and his bride, Nadine Waveney, have their whole lives ahead of them. But Riley’s injuries from the war have created awkward tensions between the couple, scars that threaten to shatter their marriage before it has truly begun.
Peter and Julia Locke are facing their own trauma. Peter has become a recluse, losing himself in drink to forget the horrors of the war. Desperate to reach her husband, Julia tries to soothe his bitterness, but their future together is uncertain.
Drawn together in the aftermath of the war, the couples become tightly intertwined. Haunted by loss, guilt, and dark memories, contending with uncertainty, anger, and pain, they are left with the question: is love strong enough to help them move forward?
The incandescent follow up to the international bestseller My Dear I Want to Tell You, The Heroes’ Welcome is a powerful and intimate novel chronicling the turbulence of 1919—a year of perilous beginnings, disturbing realities, and glimmerings of hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This swing volume in Young's engaging WWI-era trilogy picks up where My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You ended, just months after the armistice. Now, each of the finely drawn main characters has to figure out how to get past the horrors of the Great War and accept the changes it has brought. Young Riley Purefoy, a working-class boy elevated to captain during the war, faces the biggest challenge: living with a disfiguring facial wound. Riley meets this new world head-on. He marries his childhood sweetheart, the wealthy Nadine Waveney, who served as a nurse during the war, and searches for a suitable occupation. Meanwhile, Peter Locke, Riley's former commanding officer, tries to blunt his memories of the trenches with alcohol, ignoring his devoted wife, Julia, and their young son. While Peter and Julia seem stuck in the past, Peter's sister, Rose, still working as a nurse, is determined to become a new woman of the postwar period, dedicated to career rather than family. Parts of the plot seem a bit Downton Abbeyish, but Young manages to create characters who project an appealing combination of melancholy and moxie, imbuing her story with such quiet power that readers will be anxiously awaiting the final installment.
