Sad, funny and poignant by turns, this is a gentle romance by one of my favourite m/m authors . Sharply-drawn characters and a touch of the supernatural elevate it above most offerings in this genre. I'm still mentally turning the pieces of the puzzle round and round in my mind to see how they fit – ghost story, historical romance, meditation on fate and chance? Though the central mystery is precisely documented there's enough space for the reader to put her own interpretation on events, and it's the author's light touch that makes this one memorable. ( )

I did wonder why the author chose to set this story in 1992 and I found different reasons, the main two: maybe the author wanted a period in time when being gay in UK was still something that was better to keep into the closet, plus this was 1992, the peak of the AIDS plague and the characters are working in health services, I’m pretty sure being gay was a sure ticket to being fired, with a reason or the other; maybe it needed to be far away in time to the WWI, but not so away that everything was almost forgotten, all people witnessing it already dead. In case, whatever reason, the nice coincidence is that these men (and one woman) are travelling together towards Germany more or less in the same period I did, right after the falling down of the Berlin Wall, when the once DDR was again a place you could freely visit. It was a strange feeling to read about a time I could relate and at the same time being transported back at a period I have only read about.

I have already told in the past, I try to avoid reading about WWI stories, cause they almost always end in a bad way for their characters, there are not many happily ever after for those men, and most of the time they were so young, so full of life, that is heartbreaking reading of how their life was cut so soon. So that is the reason why I liked this novel, the idea, for how much fantastic could be, that some of those young souls will be able to have a second chance. Sure, at the beginning, thinking that Allan and Dennis will be the vessels of that chance it’s quite strange, truth be told I didn’t even have the feeling they were gay or interested in each other, but then, little by little, you understand that, among the group, Allan and Dennis are probably the ones with much in common, was that the connection with the past, or the real chance of a future together.

This is not the first time I read a book by Fitzroy, and so I wasn’t surprise this was not strictly a romance; btw I would like to highlight that it’s not mandatory that every story involving two gay characters has to be a romance, I prefer that, but it’s not mandatory; in a way, this is the ending of a past romance and the beginning of a future one. The strength of Fitzroy, and this novel, lies in the characters and setting, both of them very English-style, both of them carefully crafted.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CQDE5RS/?tag=elimyrevandra-20