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Title: At Break of Day
Author: Elizabeth Speller
Narrator: Gordon Griffin
Format: Unabridged
Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-03-14
Publisher: Hachette Audio UK
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
In the summer of 1913, the world seems full of possibility for four very different young men. Young Jean-Baptiste dreams of the day he'll leave his Picardy home and row down-river to the sea.
Earnest and hard-working Frank has come to London to take up an apprenticeship in Regent Street. His ambitions are self-improvement, a wife and, above all, a bicycle.
Organ scholar Benedict is anxious yet enthralled by the sensations of his synaesthesia. He is uncertain both about God and the nature of his friendship with the brilliant and mercurial Theo.
Harry has turned his back on his wealthy English family, has a thriving business in New York and a beautiful American wife. But his nationality is still British.
Three years later, on the first of July 1916, their lives have been taken in entirely unexpected directions. Now in uniform they are waiting for dawn on the battlefield of the Somme. The generals tell them that victory will soon be theirs but the men are accompanied by regrets, fears and secrets as they move towards the line.
Critic Reviews:
"A heart-wrenching, beautifully written, moving and timely novel that will absorb you completely" (Sunday Mirror)
"Elizabeth Speller has a wonderful feel for the era . . . a heart-rending story of shattered hopes and dreams" (The Times)
Members Reviews:
A tale which carries the reader along. The use ...
A tale which carries the reader along. The use of language is Dickensian. It is plain yet provocative and poignant. Major themes such as the futility of conflict are considered in a discreet manner. More please Ms. Speller
What a story...
This year - 2014 - is the 100th year anniversary of the beginning of The Great War. It has been marked by the issuance of many books about the war - from military, political, historical, and personal perspectives. Each book, whether fiction or non-fiction, almost seems better than the last. There's a lot of good writing going on and I'm pleased to include British novelist Elizabeth Speller's new book, "The First of July", on that list. This book was also published under the title "At Break of Day".
Elizabeth Speller is the author of two previous novels about the time, "The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton" and "The Return of Captain John Emmett". (She's also written a family memoir called "The Sunlight on the Garden" which was a strangely readable look at her very odd family.) Anyway, in "The First of July", Speller tells us about that first, terrible day in 1916, the beginning of the Battle of the Somme.
July 1st, 1916 has been called the bloodiest day in British history. An article in Wiki puts it this way: "1 July 1916 was also the worst day in the history of the British Army, which had c. 60,000 casualties, mainly on the front between the Albert-Bapaume road and Gommecourt, where the attack failed disastrously, few British troops reaching the German front line".
Speller has taken the battle on that day and using the four soldiers - three British and one French of whom she has given us the back stories - she writes of unbelievable physical and emotional pain, heroism, valor, and...fear. Who among us would not have felt the fear of battle?
These are characters whom Speller has drawn with incredible nuance; characters who we follow with a sense of dread and foreboding.
