My Dear I Wanted To Tell You
Author(s): Louisa Young
On the day in 1907 that eleven-year-old Riley Purefoy meets Nadine Waveney, he notes the difference between their two familieshis, working class; hers, wealthier and artisticand vows to better himself.
Nadines mother likes Riley as a young boy, but when, a few years later, she detects the romance budding between the two, she fears for her daughters future. Angry and humiliated, Riley enlists at the nearest recruiting station during the febrile first weeks of the First World War and ships for France.
While Riley and his commanding officer, Peter Locke, fight for their country, their sanity and their survival in the trenches of Flanders, every day Peters wife, Julia, undertakes ever more neurotic rituals to prepare for her beloved husbands return. Then when he does return on leave, she finds him distant, changed and damaged, beyond the scope of anything she can do.
Nadine, only eighteen when the war starts, above all wants to make promisesbut how can she when her future with Riley is completely out of her hands? Youthful passion is on their side, but their bond is tested by a terrible injury, and even more so by the imperfect rehabilitation that follows.
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ISBN:9781554688203
