Dance the Moon Down by R.L. Bartram Review!!

Book Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Authors OnLine Ltd (November 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0755206827
• ISBN-13: 978-0755206827
• 
  

In 1910, no one believed there would ever be a war with Germany. Safe in her affluent middle-class life, the rumors held no significance for Victoria either. It was her father's decision to enroll her at university that began to change all that. There she befriends the rebellious and outspoken Beryl Whittaker, an emergent suffragette, but it is her love for Gerald Avery, a talented young poet from a neighboring university that sets the seal on her future. After a clandestine romance, they marry in January 1914, but with the outbreak of the First World War, Gerald volunteers but within months has gone missing in France. Convinced that he is still alive, Victoria's initial attempts to discover what has become of him, implicate her in a murderous assault on Lord Kitchener resulting in her being interrogated as a spy, and later tempted to adultery. Now virtually destitute, Victoria is reduced to finding work as a common laborer on a run down farm, where she discovers a world of unimaginable ignorance and poverty. It is only her conviction that Gerald will some day return that sustains her through the dark days of hardship and privation as her life becomes a battle of faith against adversity.

My Thoughts

The main character, Victoria,is a well educated woman for her time, she is friends with a suffragette and has an overbearing mother. She meets Gerald Avery and falls madly in love and the love is reciprocated. They marry in 1914 and the story takes off from there. Gerald volunteers in the war but goes missing. Victoria believes with all her heart that Gerald is still alive, even though time passes without a word from him. After awhile she finds that she is running out of money and is having difficulty finding anything in the small town that she lives in. She finds work at a farm where there are mostly women working, as all the men are off fighting in the war. The work is backbreaking but Victoria perseveres and eventually meets and make friends with her coworkers, even though the work is hard she finds that after awhile she comes to enjoy the hard work. Through the years she spends on the farm, she still believes that Gerald is alive and will return to her.

Dance the Moon Down is a romantic story but it also it is also about the atrocities of war, the lives it takes and the broken lives it leaves behind. A story full of great characters, raw emotions and the premise that love does conquer all and all you need to do is listen to your heart. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, a great debut book by a talented author. A book definitely worth reading.

I received this book from the author for review and was not compensated for my review.