Nurses, spies, romance, and the Sinai and Palestine campaign

On September 27, 2021October 19, 2021 By BibliostaticIn Historical, Independent publishing, Political intrigue, Romance, Self-publishing, WWI1 Comment

Windswept by Annabelle McCormack

Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

r/suggestmeabook: I want a romance between an endearingly plucky nurse and a man who could ruin her set in Palestine and Egypt during WWI.

Movie rating: R

Pages: 440

Publisher: Self

Series: Windswept Saga

ARC provided by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

WWI British Middle East Romance

From the publisher: May, 1917. Ginger Whitman left a life of wealth and privilege in England to train as a battlefield nurse and serve in the Great War. Working on the brutal frontlines in Palestine, she finds a wounded soldier hiding in her camp. The soldier claims to carry intelligence unmasking a secret plot against the British—and that traitors within British intelligence are searching for him. Desperate and dying, the soldier entrusts a coded message to her care.

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This action-packed romance set among British troops in Palestine and Egypt is a ripping tale. The well-bred lady becoming a nurse is fairly common, but Ginger’s ambition to be a doctor, the Middle Eastern setting, and the addition of the spy world makes this anything but a run-of-the-mill WWI romance.

Rules for good reasons. Rules that, when broken, incurred a father’s wrath for dismissing a wealthy “well-matched” marriage proposal in favor of a doctor who couldn’t help bolster her family’s estate. Rules that stopped her from entertaining thoughts of the London School of Medicine for Women in favor of a much more “sensible” nursing education.
Annabelle McCormack, Windswept

The characters are vivid and likable or hate-able (shouldn’t that be a word?) as applies. My only quibble is that the heroine, Ginger Whitman, despite both being described as and demonstrating intelligence and independence, manages to not figure out whom to distrust for a good portion of the book, even though it’s obvious to the reader about 15% into the story. Usually that uncharacteristic obliviousness drives me nuts, but Ginger is charming enough that it didn’t bother me as much.

Death made equals of cowards and heroes, friend or foe.
Annabelle McCormack, Windswept

Ginger’s inability to see what is evident to readers is explained, to some extent, by the facts of her upbringing: privileged, denied any opportunity to assert herself until the war gave her the option of nursing, and conditioned to put The Family over all. She’s often unnecessarily consumed by guilt, but that’s really not uncommon for women raised in a role of subservience (or anyone in a patriarchy).

The bleak horror of her work had numbed her to the idea of a merciful God. Why would he listen to prayers for the mundane and ignore the cries of humanity slaughtering itself?
Annabelle McCormack, Windswept

As for the looming British Mandate (1918-1948) issues, Annabelle McCormack lets the facts stand without the patriotic protagonists doing much but some questions and a sense of duty to country. After all, the conflict was a result of the Ottoman Empire’s actions, right? However, McCormack does hint at the trouble in the future as the mentioned, but not actually in the book, T.E. Lawrence is making promises to the Arabs he’s courting while the British are simultaneously making the same kinds of promises to the Zionists. (I’m slightly disappointed Gertrude Bell earned no mention, though.) It’s hard to ignore, though, as a person of our era, well aware of the bloodshed that the former colonial power wreaked on the region.

The leadership in London had never dressed wounds or held soldiers’ hands as they wept over lost limbs.
Annabelle McCormack, Windswept

However, in the context of the book, there appear to be no alternatives to those living in those times, which is a reasonable position. Even now it’s hard to come up with a solution for resisting the Germans in the Middle East during WWI without using the local interests to British advantage. It’s tempting to say that the powers that be should have done something different, as it should have been clear from the beginning that going back on promises would probably create longterm animosity, but it’s difficult to predict how different choices during WWI would have lead to better outcomes for more people. The rule of unintended consequences is a bitch.

[P]eople who feel betrayed and mistreated have a tendency to act irrationally.
Annabelle McCormack, Windswept

Windswept’s blooming romance in the midst of machinations of so many parties is a great read with characters you’ll love and hate well.

AMAZON | APPLE | BARNES AND NOBLE | BOOKS2READ | KOBO

Exiled between worlds

On February 23, 2021March 4, 2021 By BibliostaticIn Alternate reality, Big 4+, Black author, Black protagonist, Colonial, LGBTQA+, Political intrigue1 Comment

Big 4+ prepublication review: The Unbroken by C.L. Clark

r/suggestmeabook: I want a political novel seared by the trauma of colonialism as experienced by a woman of color acting as an officer for the colonizing power.

Movie rating: R

Pages: 442

Publisher: Orbit

Publication date: 3/23/21

Series: Magic of the Lost

From the publisher: Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought. Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne. Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.

This novel, graphically demonstrating the ills of imperialism, made me dream of the Amritsar Massacre and the Sepoy Rebellion (which was the name given back when I first learned of it) when I was in the midst of it, not sure which way the story was going. However, there are little frills of French, so I probably should have been thinking the Battle of Algiers. C.L. Clark’s book is that vivid, thrusting you into the point of view of what it would be like to feel trapped between a world that had trained you and an unremembered land that gave you birth.

The Balladrians could—would—flay them all alive. Or whip them just as near. It baffled her, how stupid the rebels were about the balance of power: The Qazali had nothing. Balladaire had numbers, equipment, supplies—they were winning, had been winning for decades.
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken

Touraine has long been caught between her ambition to make something of herself in the Baladaire empire for which she has fought in many wars and her desire to protect her fellow Sands, other conscripts from her homeland. That tension is pulled to its utmost when her unit is deployed to the land of their birth, Qazal. No one wants her—not the country she’s bled for or the country she was pulled from with no say in the matter. Sometimes you just want to shake her to see things as they are (and occasionally yell at her for some ill-considered choices), but you can’t help feeling for her predicament.

Always, always someone weighed her. Always, someone looked for the flaw.
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken

Luca, princess and arguably rightful ruler of the empire, has been sent to deal with local disturbances. I had less sympathy for her and her inability, at times, to empathize with the colony she’d come to. Having a disabled protagonist who was quite functional despite the condition that made walking or dancing difficult was a plus, but her self-centeredness was a bit off-putting. She can dress it up as beneficial to all her subjects, but those claims felt hollow.

It made Luca wonder what new boundaries people would have to make in the future—how they would call themselves, what they would find to separate themselves from each other.
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken

It’s an absorbing story, full of devious actors. There’s a lot of emotion packed into this, and the otherness that Touraine always feels is convincing and heart-rending. There’s also a lot of questioning about who is responsible for what and how to handle competing priorities and loyalties. There are some occasional abrupt shifts in pace, and times when the motivations for actions seem less than convincing. The mood is grim most of the time.

People like you and me have to remind people like her the difference between what’s important and what’s possible.
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken

As well as the unusual storyline, The Unbroken features a cast that’s overwhelmingly female. They all have their own quirks and personalities, and almost all of them are strong (and fragile) in unique ways. Lesbian relationships are taken as a matter of course, a pleasant feature in an alternate reality.

They never chose this. They’re not getting rewarded for valor with ribbons and raises. We just die, and when we die, we’re not even worth the wood to burn us.
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken

Another interesting feature is that Balladaire has eliminated religion, if not by law, by a pervasive social view that it is “uncivilized.” The imperial view is in opposition to the religious nature of most of the subject countries, although the religions portrayed remind me more of the contractual types of religion (do this for me and I’ll do that for you) rather than any mystical-type connection.

Magic was a tool, perhaps even a weapon. Religion was folly dressed as hope.
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken

It takes a while for any fantasy aspect (other than an imagined reality) to appear, and it may be too limited for some fantasy junkies. But I found it a compelling, if at times disturbing, read.