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Consider the title--Wake. The dictionary definition of this word reads:
1) To emerge or cause to emerge from sleep.
2) Ritual for the dead.
3) Consequence or aftermath.
All three describe the book well. The central focus of this book is the aftermath of the First World War, its consequences in the years that followed not only for those who fought but also those who remained at home.

The setting is London during the five days, November 7th through November 11th, 1920, when the casket for the Unknown Soldier was interned in Westminster on the second anniversary of the Great War Armistice.

Day be day, we follow events in the lives of three women—a young woman of nineteen (Hettie), another of twenty-nine (Evelyn) and the last, a woman in her late forties (Ada). The women are not acquainted with each other and are at different stages in their relationships with men. They did not fight, but for all of them their lives were changed by the war. With fathers, brothers, sons and prospective lovers altered, the women were too.

Since the story progresses day by day, one might think it is simple to follow, but it is not. The three different women, each with their separate acquaintances and family, are flipped between in a haphazard fashion. No warning is given when the story switches from one woman’s life to another’s. Secondly, characters are not introduced. Thirdly, pronouns are used rather than names. “Who is she? Who is he?� I kept asking. A paragraph will start with someone doing something, but we are not told clearly who. Only after lines of description is this finally revealed; this becomes wasted information. There are many, many characters. You must sort them into which woman’s life they belong. There are numerous flashbacks too. The beginning is infuriatingly confusing.

We are given bits of a puzzle; it is our job to first sort them and then in the next step fit them together, to understand how the women’s lives interconnect. I assume this is meant to be fun, but it is not what I am looking for in a novel. I do not want to spend time figuring out who is being spoken of; I want to spend time understanding the characters themselves. This explains why I cannot give the book more stars. The technique employed does not fit me.

After a third of the novel, after finally having made sense of who was who and having an inkling of how the women’s lives might be connected, could I relax and focus on the story itself and its characters.

The prose, the wording, I do like. The feel of a situation, a pervading atmosphere, is well drawn. Great dialogues—the dialogues match the characters speaking.

I do feel that by book’s end I had come to know the three women’s individual personality. I empathized and felt for all three of them. The purpose of the book though, is to unravel how the women’s lives intersected. This interests me less.

The audiobook is very well narrated by the author. Most authors cannot do this, but Anna Hope is the exception. Her words are clear and easy to follow. She emphasizes the appropriate words and pauses in the correct places, but I do wish she had in some way made it clear when the story switched form one woman ‘s life to another’s.



The Ballroom 4 stars
Wake 3 stars