If, like me, you enjoyed the TV series Home Fires then this book will interest you. It was one of those Sunday evening programmes like Ballykissangel (Yes, I’m old and I remember this!), Call the Midwife, (I’m also up to date !), The Good Karma Hospital and the Durrell's that I couldn’t ever imagine watching on any other evening of the week but Sunday. So this is a kind of literary box set of a season 3 that never made it to the TV sadly. I’m really not sure what someone who has not seen the show would make of it. For me it was an opportunity to reacquaint myself with some ‘old friends’ and see just how they were faring. Once I started reading it was easy to see the faces and places and I was glad of the opportunity to see how certain situations were resolved. I was hoping for all the ends to be tied up because on TV the end of season 2 suggested much more to follow. But I don’t think they were really tied. That makes me suspect that the writer maybe intends for another book to follow this one. And I’m not sure if it will work. That isn’t to say that I did not enjoy this book but I think it was purely because of the TV series that I did. If I’d picked it up knowing nothing of the characters and the plot and the location I might have been bemused by much of what I read. I found it to be well written; straightforward story telling, a reasonable balance struck between the different sets of characters and their individual storylines and convincing links between the sets of characters to give the whole narrative a pleasing flow and cohesion. One very emotional part did make me cry but again the picture in my head was of the characters I’d seen on the TV. What a book can do that the TV can’t is allow us to understand a little of what is going on in the characters heads and we are privy to a great deal of that in the book which I enjoyed. The thoughts of women like Pat and Teresa were quite fascinating. The conclusion was unexpected and a little abrupt I felt. As a war story it doesn’t cover any new ground but I don’t think that was the intention. I’ll be interested to see what people who have never seen the TV show felt about the book. I am grateful to Readers First for the opportunity to read this.