Wake by Anna Hope

Ada, Evelyn, and Hettie...three women all having their lives touched by WWI and all sharing the pain of loss.

Ada lost her son and still believes he is alive since there really wasn't any closure.  She thinks she sees him walking in the town on his way home, but he never does arrive home.

Evelyn works in the Pensions Exchange and must deal with maimed soldiers asking for more money or more help.  Her brother Ed becomes part of her job and an interesting part of another pensioner's life when the pensioner asks Evelyn to look for an Officer Montfort.  She tells him she can't look for him, and her brother denies knowing Rowan Hind, but obviously he does.

Hettie dances for six pence and has to give half of it to her mother and brother since her father has died and Fred can't work.

All three women need a change, but will they get the change they need in their lives? And…all three women have one person in common with their grief but don’t know it.

WAKE was a bit confusing to me.  I couldn't keep the characters straight and had to keep looking back as to which character was which because it kept jumping from one story to the next.  The Unknown Soldier part was confusing as well.

The gist of the book is that war changes everyone, but mainly the women left behind.  The characters were a bit unlikeable because of obsessions and not knowing what to do with their lives, but the author did develop them well enough that after a while you felt sorry for them.  

The descriptions of the characters and scenes was quite good and detailed as well. If the book had not been jumping from one scene and from one character to the other, it would have been much more appealing.  I did like WAKE despite all of this, but it took a while to get into the book.  I LOVED the cover...perfect for the era.

The historical fiction aspect was very well done, and the feelings of each character were easy to identify with.  The main feeling was that of despair and boredom with the situations these women were locked into in their daily lives.   

My rating is going to be a 3 1/2 out of 5.

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.