Wednesday, July 2, 2014

The Care and Management of Lies: A Novel of the Great War

By Jacqueline Winspeare
Rated 3 1/3 Stars
Audiobook

This book didn't work nearly as well for me as Winspeare's Masie Dobbs series does.   It was OK I guess but sadly I found it very predictable. I would not recommend it unless you knew nothing about that era and wanted the history lesson.  As always Winspeare does a great job with the atmosphere of that time but there is really nothing driving this book as far as story. I knew in the first chapter how it was going to end.

What I did enjoy about the book was her portrait of life on a small Kentish farm.  I also enjoyed the way Kezia, the wife who ran the farm and kept the home fires burning while her husband went off to war.  She painted lovely word pictures in her letters to him of imaginary meals that she was cooking for them as if he was there with her.  I thought that was a lovely  way to convey a feeling of comfort and a connection to home.  I thought that was cleverly done by the author although the recipes did wander out into left field from time to time.

I did not care for the ending. It ended too abruptly.  I know that Happy Ever Afters were thin on the ground at the end of WW1 but I'm not a reader who needs stark reality all the time.  A little fantasy can be a good thing sometimes.