Birdsong

A brilliant, shocking read but one I’ve read several times, and each time I read it the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped underground leaves me feeling breathless.

Although graphic in places, this is a beautifully written novel that I know I’ll return to time and again. As an author of World War One fiction, I aim to bring a sense of how it felt to be my characters and this book achieves that perfectly as far as I’m concerned.

Heading back further in time to the First World War, this novel is unforgettable and devastating. What starts as a rather sexy story of forbidden love between our English soldier protagonist and a French woman is turned on its head when we are propelled into the barbarity and slaughter of the trenches. Entering our hero’s mind on the night before the Battle of the Somme, and again when the whistles blow at first light, I felt physical sickening shock as I turned the pages, not wishing to continue reading, but unable to stop myself.