Book
A Bitter Truth
First published 2011
Returning from France for Christmas leave in 1917, Bess Crawford helps a frightened woman who has fled an unhappy marriage. At the family’s country house, an old quarrel, a missing child and the death of a guest turn hospitality into suspicion. When Bess herself becomes vulnerable to accusation, she must discover which member of the household is protecting the truth and why the war has made that truth so dangerous.
The novel contrasts the violence of the front with coercion and emotional cruelty inside an apparently privileged home. Questions of legitimacy, inheritance and a soldier’s honour give the domestic mystery a wider wartime significance, while Bess’s intervention tests how far compassion can reach when every family member has something to lose.
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