Título del libro: In falling snow

Escrito por Mary-Rose MacColl

DESCRIPCIÓN Y/O SINOPSIS DE ESTE EBOOK

Iris is getting old. A widow, her days are spent living quietly and worrying about her granddaughter, Grace, a headstrong young doctor. It’s a small sort of life. But one day Iris receives something unexpected in the post – an invitation to a WWI reunion in France.

Determined to go, Iris is overcome by memories of the past and of her journey to France in 1914, where she followed her young brother Tom, intending to bring him home to safety. But on her way to find Tom, Iris discovers the old abbey of Royaumont, where a group of women work to set up a field hospital.

Putting her fears aside, Iris decides to stay and help. It is at Royaumont that she truly comes of age, finding her capability and her strength, discovering her passion for medicine, making friends with the vivacious Violet and falling in love. But war is a brutal thing, and there is a terrible price that Iris has to pay – a price that will echo down the generations.

BREVE FICHA TÉCNICA DEL LIBRO

Formato del ebook: Kindle PDF EPUB MOBI
Tamaño del archivo: 696 KB
Longitud de impresión: 465 páginas
Editorial/Editado por: Allison & Busby (25 de marzo de 2013)
Idioma: Inglés

OPINIONES:

Wonderful emotionally gripping tale
This is a wonderful book about love, achievement, sorrows and secrets, focusing on the lives of some very strong women, both in the past and the present. It was an emotional roller-coaster which left me drained but uplifted.
Australian author Mary-Rose MacColl weaves a compelling story of love, achievement, danger, friendship, family and memories from WWI France to contemporary Australia. Iris Crane is now in her late 80’s and her life is filled with memories of her early times, especially of her brother Tom and her time as a nurse at a hospital in France during WWI. Her current life centres on Grace, her granddaughter, who Iris brought up when her mother Rose died in childbirth. Grace is an Obstetrician with a hectic life balancing the needs of a family of 3 small children with the demands of her profession.
In 1914 Iris travelled to France to find her 15 year old brother who had lied about his age and enlisted in the Australian army. Already trained as a nurse, in order to find Tom she volunteers to work in a hospital in France. On her way, 21 year old Iris meets charismatic Frances Ivens, a doctor who is setting up a field hospital to be run by women in the old abbey of Royaumont, north of Paris. Under the spell of Frances, Iris decides to work at Royaumont where she comes of age in an environment of loving companionship, hardship and the horrors of war which test her capabilities and strengths to the limit.
At Royaumont she meets the vivacious and outgoing Violet and their friendship and relationship decide the rest of Iris’s life. In the present, one day Iris receives a letter from Violet, now in her 90’s, to come to Royaumont again for a final reunion. This once again triggers her memories of the past and makes her face up once again to the secrets of her relationship with Violet and her brother Tom.
MacColl’s well researched descriptions of life at Royaumont during the Great War are insightful and atmospheric. By moving from memories and descriptions of the past to the present day she builds a personal and family drama of almost epic proportions. It is not really a book with strong feminist messages, but it firmly addresses the challenges that women face both at the beginning of the century and in the present day.
This book has immediately gone into my list of best reads of 2012. Mary-Rose MacColl also joins my list of talented Australian authors.

Thought Provoking!
I normally don’t read books like this. By «this» I mean stories about war and love and secrets. You see, it’s just too cool for a girl like me. Way too sophisticated. Translation: I am not a perfect match for books about war or love. I also can not stand books with absurdly long summaries. (Sorry!)
The characters are all brilliant. They are well-written characters, all with secrets. It’s at times hard to keep them all in your head (only so much my brain can handle….) but that’s okay. It’s nicer to be able to read about all these characters rather than not have any interesting characters at all.
It’s incredibly harrowing, this novel. I hate how sad it is, but that’s the point of the novel. To make you cry. To make you weep. To make you realize that there ARE second chances and there ARE ways to be forgiven and that nothing is what it seems.
It’s a thought-provoking book. It’s quite good.

Dedicated but Costly Love!
Iris and Tom Crane were brother and sister who were very close due to their mother’s early death. Iris was actually more of a mother to Tom and yet they totally enjoyed growing up together. Then came the day when Iris actually encouraged Tom to run away and join the Army. Their father demands that Iris follow him to France and bring him home, not realizing that Iris was about to become encouraged to be part of a group of women (of all nationalities) who are creating a hospital for wounded soldiers. And this hospital, Fondation Royaumont or The Scottish Women’s Hospital at the French Abbey of Royaumont north of Paris would be run by only women, some who were early suffragettes (after all, this is 1914, WWI) and some who just wanted to care for those who were sacrificing comfort and even life to ensure that Germans did not take over France. The dedication of these women in the harshest imaginable conditions emanates from these amazing, talented, intelligent women who can do everything a man can and more! Even the male French officers and those who are healed in this place come to deeply respect what these women accomplish.
Iris is invited by the head of the hospital to help them and she literally becomes the right-hand assistant/nurse of Miss Iven. She does find Tom but he won’t hear anything about returning to Australia with or without her. For now he is working as a non-combatant, since he was only fifteen years old when he joined up. Iris will fall in love gradually with a French officer and be offered a chance to have a totally different future by Miss Iven. Her best friend Violet and Iris become inseparable and it is this moving friendship through thick and thin that enable both to survive this devastating war that keeps coming closer and closer to their hospital/home. But Iris will make a phenomenal choice that happens so fast the reader is left reeling for quite a while!
Years later, Iris is reminiscing about her time in the War when she receives an invitation for a reunion; her granddaughter Grace is initially against the trip for Iris is frail and failing. But Grace’s husband supports Iris’ desire to travel even while Grace and he are dealing with a devastating discovery about their own son, Henry. Add to that, Grace, a doctor, has her own personal crisis at work regarding a protocol of treatment she should have followed but didn’t because of the animosity she experienced toward the patient, for a very personal and painful reason. From here on, the story keeps switching between Iris and Grace where the surprises and shocks are multiple and totally unexpected – phenomenal to say the least!
In Falling Snow is a historical novel about relationships and bonding. It’s about support and treachery, sacrifices even beyond the medical work being done, about lost love and friendship, about jealousy and forgiveness, and so much more.
This is a stunning novel that is very well written, always interesting, idealistic yet practical, funny yet solemn at appropriate times, poignant without being morbid yet oh so very realistic and moving! If you love a heart-warming story, a mystery, a tender romance, a riddle, this is your next read!!!! Top ratings for this literate historical novel that reads like a contemporary work of fiction! Superb job, Ms. Mary-Rose MacColl.