Tag: WW1

Book Review: The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

The Winter SoldierAbout the Book

Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives, at a commandeered church tucked away high in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains, he finds a freezing outpost ravaged by typhus. The other doctors have fled, and only a single, mysterious nurse named Sister Margarete remains.

But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon’s scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever.

From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is the story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make, and the precious opportunities to atone.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (336 pp.)    Publisher: Pan Macmillan/Mantle
Published: 20th September 2018 (ebook)   Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Romance

Pre-order/Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Winter Soldier on Goodreads

My Review

The reader witnesses in brutal detail Lucius’ struggle to do his best for the soldiers in his care, many of whom have suffered terrible injuries that challenge his medical knowledge and surgical skills.  His task is made more difficult by the basic conditions in the makeshift field hospital to which he has been posted, the lack of food and medical supplies and the long, cold winters.

Along with a few orderlies, Lucius, and the hospital’s only nurse, Sister Margarete, care for the patients as best they can, battling not only the injuries themselves but the scourge of infection and disease.  Before long, the mutual dependence between Lucius and Margarete grows into a forbidden intimacy.

Although Lucius tries to fulfil the principle of ‘do no harm’, this conflicts with his military oath to ‘patch and send’; to return soldiers as quickly as possible back to the front to fight.  This dilemma becomes personified in the case of one patient.  What follows will have far-reaching consequences for Lucius and others.

I don’t really ‘do’ romance in novels, especially if it’s at all soppy or sentimental, but I’ll freely admit I was slightly tearful at the end of The Winter Soldier.    It made me think of Dr. Zhivago, albeit David Lean’s marvellous film version rather than the original novel by Boris Pasternak.

The Winter Soldier is a beautifully written novel that depicts the bonds formed through shared experiences in the worst of situations.  It’s a story of people thrown together by war, of separation and reunion, of love and loss.  I thought it was fantastic.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of publishers, Pan Macmillan/Mantle and NetGalley.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

In three words: Epic, intense, emotional

Try something similar…The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford (read my review here)

Daniel MasonAbout the Author

Daniel Mason is the author of The Piano Tuner (2002), A Far Country (2007), and The Winter Soldier (2018). His writing has been translated into 28 languages, adapted for opera and stage and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Northern California Book Award. His short stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, Zoetrope: All Story and Lapham’s Quarterly, and have been awarded a Pushcart Prize, and a National Magazine Award.  In 2014, he was a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

A Clinical Assistant Professor in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry, his research interests include the subjective experience of mental illness and the influence of literature, history, and culture on the practice of medicine.

Connect with Daniel

Website  ǀ Goodreads

Throwback Thursday: A Countess in Limbo by Olga Hendrikoff & Sue Carscallen

whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme originally created by Renee at It’s Book Talk.  It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.

I recently took part in the blog tour for A Romanov Empress by C. W. Gortner, the fictionalised story of the life of Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia.    Whilst reading the book, it reminded me of a fascinating memoir I read in 2017 by a woman who lived through some of that turbulent period in Russian history.  Called A Countess in Limbo: Diaries in War & Revolution, it recounts the experiences of Countess Olga “Lala” Hendrikoff based on her personal journals collected and translated by her great niece, Sue Carscallen.  To read a wonderful interview with Sue about her memories of Olga and the process of writing the book, click here.

A Countess in Limbo was published in November 2016 by Archway Publishing and you can find purchase links below.

CountessAbout the Book

Countess Olga “Lala” Hendrikoff was born into the Russian aristocracy, serving as lady-in-waiting to the empresses and enjoying a life of great privilege. But on the eve of her wedding in 1914 came the first rumours of an impending war – a war that would change her life forever and force her to flee her country as a stateless person with no country to call home.  Spanning two of the most turbulent times in modern history—World War I in Russia and World War II in Paris – Countess Hendrikoff’s journals demonstrate the uncertainty, horror, and hope of daily life in the midst of turmoil. Her razor-sharp insight, wit, and sense of humour create a fascinating eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution and the occupation and liberation of Paris.

Format: ebook (337 pp.)                           Publisher: Archway Publishing
Published: 3rd November 2016             Genre: Memoir, History, Non-Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find A Countess in Limbo on Goodreads

My Review

I found these journals absolutely fascinating and I was amazed how a woman could live through such upheaval, struggle, loss and privation and still provide such an objective commentary on events, managing to see the good – and bad – on both sides.

In the first section, the young Olga recounts some of her experiences living in Russia at the outbreak of World War I.  There are touching scenes, such as when she and her mother witness the departure of her younger brother to join the army. ‘To the strains of martial music, the train, illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun, started pulling away from the platform and soon vanished in the evening darkness.  With long-repressed tears flowing without measure, my mother and I stood on the platform for a few more minutes.’

Olga did not keep journals throughout her life – or at least, none remain – so there are gaps where only her great niece’s research can try to provide welcome answers.  One such mystery is the circumstances around the ending of her marriage after only three years.

The sections of the book containing the journals Olga Hendrikoff kept during World War 2, covering the onset of war, the occupation of France and its liberation, I found particularly compelling.  Throughout there is a sense of incredulity that nations should so quickly repeat the mistakes of history.  ‘Another war with Germany seems incredible to me when no-one has yet forgotten the last one.’  Later she observes: ‘I often wake up in the morning thinking I have had a bad dream – the war, the departure of friends and relatives…  The first few days after the war was declared, it was if I was stunned.  I could not bring myself to believe that the country I live in is really at war.’

Olga documents the daily struggle to find food, fuel to keep warm and employment so that items only available on the thriving black market can be purchased.  She vividly describes how the German advance into France provokes the desperate flight of people.  ‘The route nationale is still clogged with refugees who make use of any means of locomotion: men on bicycles, women on foot pushing baby carriages, babies in wheelbarrows pulled like trailers by bicycles, mule- or horse-drawn carriages, strollers…in a word, anything on wheels, anything that rolls, has been mobilised for the exodus.’

The liberation of Paris brings no end to the food shortages, power cuts and daily struggle.  It also brings something worse – reprisals against those deemed to have been collaborators.  ‘In the troubled times we are going through, alas, the spirit of personal vengeance is naturally given free rein.’

Olga becomes one of hundreds of thousands stateless émigrés, in her case unable to return to Russia following the revolution and its transformation into the Soviet Union.   However, she never loses her affection for her homeland, which she looks back on fondly.  ‘Would it suddenly be possible to go back to your own country and see Russian forests again, the rivers you knew as a child, the landscapes you still hold in your heart?’ In the end, economic pressures force her to leave France and, since a return to Russia is impossible, she embarks for America where she spent the remainder of her long life.

Countess Hendrikoff was clearly a remarkable woman with wit, intelligence, resilience, compassion for others and a relentless determination to survive.  It is wonderful that her journals survive in order that modern readers can share her experiences and her admirable outlook on life.  There is so much more that I could mention about this book but I will simply urge you to read it for yourself.  One final quotation, should you need more persuading: ‘All war seems absurd to me anyway.  The victors often lose in the exchange, and the vanquished think only of revenge.’

I received a review copy courtesy of the author and publishers, Archway Publishing, in return for an honest review.

In three words: Enthralling, moving, inspirational

Try something similar… The Romanov Empress by C. W. Gortner (read my review here)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

CarscallenAbout the Authors

Olga Hendrikoff was born in 1892 in Voronezh, Russia, and attended the famous Smolny Institute. In 1914, she married Count Peter Hendrikoff just as World War I began.  In the ensuing years, Hendrikoff lived in Constantinople, Rome, Paris, and Philadelphia. She spent her last 20 years in Calgary. She died in 1987.

Sue Carscallen spent 20 years with Olga Hendrikoff before her great aunt’s passing in 1987.  Carscallen stumbled upon Hendrikoff’s diaries hidden in a trunk at her great aunt’s Calgary home.  Over time she unraveled the mysteries hidden in the manuscripts, travelling to France and Russia to supplement her research into Hendrikoff’s life.  Today, Carscallen resides in Calgary.

Website | Facebook ǀ  Goodreads