THIS TIME OF DYING BY REINA JAMES
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publishers: Portobello Books (2007)
Pages: 290
ISBN-10: 1846270464
ISBN-13: 978-1846270468
Synopsis
It is October 1918, and England is gathering its dead. For Henry Speake, Undertaker, laying to rest the shattered bodies of young men sent home from the front has become a grimly familiar duty. But then a country already reeling from war faces an unexpected shock: an epidemic. The Spanish influenza will kill more people than World War I. There is no cure, no help from the government, not even a clear sense of what is happening.
Henry sees the dangers much sooner than most, especially when he finds a letter left behind by a dying doctor, who begs health officials to start closing ports and setting up quarantines before it is too late. Unable to get a government minister to listen to him, Henry turns to a local schoolteacher, Allen Thompson, a woman who would usually be above his station.........
I'm not really sure why this book appealed to me, perhaps it was because of the time period, perhaps it was the cover. Well, whatever it was I'm very pleased that it did. It was a thoroughly engrossing and informative read, if somewhat ghoulish in parts. It covers 3 weeks in the winter of 1918 and it was interesting to note how people were kept in the dark about the epidemic.
Reina James compelling writing was a delight to read and even though I didn't like either of the main characters - middle-aged, grumpy, dull, Henry the Undertaker who loves playing his piano, and lonely, indecisive Mrs Allen Thompson the Teacher, I was always hoping that their friendship would turn to a romance by the end of the book.
This is not a book for the squeamish, as you can imagine there are plenty of deaths, sometimes whole families, but it was a fascinating account of how people coped while WWI was coming to an end, how they survived and carried on.
Carole