Rachel Hore
Glorious Mud
At Break of Day
By Elizabeth Speller
Virago 390pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
The Lie
By Helen Dunmore
Hutchinson 294pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
A bumper crop of books to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War has started to fill our bookshops. These two novels are among the first fictional fruits and they set a high standard. Elizabeth Speller takes the more traditional approach. A powerful storyteller, she follows the individual trajectories of four young men, one French, three English, from 1913 until her climactic drama in 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.
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