The Poppy Field by Deborah Carr Review

The Poppy Field

By Deborah Carr

Release Date: October 12th, 2018

HarperImpulse

Tour Host: Rachel's Random Resources

Source: ARC provided by the publisher

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

Young nurse, Gemma, is struggling with the traumas she has witnessed through her job in the NHS. Needing to escape from it all, Gemma agrees to help renovate a rundown farmhouse in Doullens, France, a town near the Somme. There, in a boarded-up cupboard, wrapped in old newspapers, is a tin that reveals the secret letters and heartache of Alice Le Breton, a young volunteer nurse who worked in a casualty clearing station near the front line.

Set in the present day and during the horrifying years of the war, both woman discover deep down the strength and courage to carry on in even the most difficult of times. Through Alice’s words and her unfailing love for her sweetheart at the front, Gemma learns to truly live again.

*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange of an honest and unbiased review*

The Poppy Field truly a moving book, set around two remarkable nurses, and though this book is labeled under the historical romance genre, but I would honestly put it under women's fiction, because even though I love and review romance regularly, The Poppy Field is SO much more than to be pigeonholed into a just one category. 

We begin with Gemma; a modern-day trauma nurse, who is betrayed by the man she cared for! And on top of that has to deal with a mother who has less personality than a piece of ice! But she took a break from her hospital, to take care of a piece of property her father inherited in a small village in France, after finally managing to find a contractor to work on the crumbling house, she finds letters, that take her back to WW1.

And those letters belong to Alice; who is a WW1 auxiliary nurse, serving in a small town in chance! Who is finally free of her overbearing mother and falls in love, but things don't go to plan, and she finds that her life has changed forever!

I cannot even express just how much this book moved me! It sucks you right it, and you feel like one minute you are in modern-day France and the next moment you are in the middle of a WW1 field hospital, with bombs, pain, and blood everywhere.

I could literally go on about The Poppy Field FOREVER! But instead, I'm going to give it 5 stars and demand that you buy this truly beautifully painful book.

Deborah Carr lives on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands with her husband, two children, and three rescue dogs. She became interested in books set in WW1 when researching her great-grandfather's time as a cavalryman in the 17th 21st Lancers.

She is part of ‘The Blonde Plotters’ writing group and was Deputy Editor on the online review site, Novelicious.com for seven years. Her debut historical romance, Broken Faces, is set in WW1 and was runner-up in the 2012 Good Housekeeping Novel Writing Competition and given a 'special commendation' in the Harry Bowling Prize that year. The Poppy Field is her second historical novel.