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Wake by Anna Hope.

On completion of this novel by Anna Hope I came to realise what a wonderful title WAKE really is and what it means to the story.

Wake / Werk
1) Emerge or cause to emerge from sleep
2) Ritual for the dead
3) Consequence or Aftermath

This novel is the story of three women in London in November 1920 coping and living in the aftermath of war as the city awaits the arrival of the unknown Soldier from France to his final resting place.
This is a quiet book but tells a very emotional and real story. I knew little about the Unknown Soldier Story and I enjoyed reading this very well researched Novel that Anna Hope has written. While the story of Ada, Evelyn and Hettie is fiction the pain and suffering these women of war who were left behind is extremely well written in this novel. I emotionally connected with Ada in this story as this is how life must be for mothers all over the world when a son goes to war and time has not changed that ache and never will while wars are a way of our world.

I'll remember you he thinks, and as the gun carriage with its coffin and its dented helmet passes him by, he closes his eyes.
Nothing will bring them back. Not the words of comfortable men. Not the words of politicians. Or the platitudes of paid poets.

This is one of those books that in its own quiet way it leaves its mark on the reader. A wonderful and emotional story of Five Days in November 1920. I learned something new by reading this book and while I have read a lot of books about the War this one will stay in my memory for its emotional impact.