After fleeing a failed relationship, Gemma ends up in a small French town to renovate a farmhouse that belonged to her father’s cousin. There she meets handyman Tom, and they set about getting the house into shape. Within a short time she finds herself falling for him but, despite all the hints he drops, feels that he’s not interested. When they find an old box with letters written a hundred years earlier, Gemma finds herself immersed in the life of a nurse named Alice Le Breton.

Alice worked as a volunteer nurse in France during World War I where, despite the rules of not forming relationships with patients, she fell in love with an injured soldier. The more Gemma reads of Alice’s life and her romance with Ed, the more similarities she finds to her current life. Ultimately, Alice enables Gemma to finally make a difference in her own life.

I had problems with this book. As Emma and Alice told their stories in alternating chapters there were times when they were too wishy washy, but Gemma was more annoying. I thought Tom, and especially Ed, were much stronger role models than the women. In addition there was much comma misuse and poor sentence structure. A blatant editing error occurred in chapter 22. Gemma was upset that she’d have to leave Alice’s letters behind when she left the farmhouse. Tom showed up, hugged her, and was referred to as “Ed” instead of “Tom.” I’m not sure how all this made it past the editor, but these indiscretions conspired to make me go down a star in my review.

Though I had issues with this book, I will leave it up to you Adults to decide if you want to read it or not.

Book review link: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2019/09/13/the-poppy-field-by-deborah-c... ( )

The Poppy Field truly a moving book, set around two remarkable nurses, and though this book is labeled under the historical romance genre, but I would honestly put it under women's fiction, because even though I love and review romance regularly, The Poppy Field is SO much more than to be pigeonholed into a just one category.

We begin with Gemma; a modern-day trauma nurse, who is betrayed by the man she cared for! And on top of that has to deal with a mother who has less personality than a piece of ice! But she took a break from her hospital, to take care of a piece of property her father inherited in a small village in France, after finally managing to find a contractor to work on the crumbling house, she finds letters, that take her back to WW1.

And those letters belong to Alice; who is a WW1 auxiliary nurse, serving in a small town in chance! Who is finally free of her overbearing mother and falls in love, but things don't go to plan, and she finds that her life has changed forever!

I cannot even express just how much this book moved me! It sucks you right it, and you feel like one minute you are in modern-day France and the next moment you are in the middle of a WW1 field hospital, with bombs, pain, and blood everywhere.

I could literally go on about The Poppy Field FOREVER! But instead, I'm going to give it 5 stars and demand that you buy this truly beautifully painful book. ( )

Two women, separated by 100 years, living remarkably similar lives… The Poppy Field, by Deborah Carr, tells the tales of two English nurses, Alice and Gemma, living in northeastern France. Alice is a World War I VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse working near the front line, and Gemma is a NHS (National Health Service) trauma center nurse. And although both women suffer immense losses, in the end they find lasting love. ...more ( )

I love a good dual timeline story and that's what I got with The Poppy Field. Gemma is a trauma nurse in Brighton but a tragedy has led her to France, to a farmhouse that her father wants her to help renovate. It's near the Somme and this leads in nicely to the other story, that of Nurse Alice le Breton, who left her home in Jersey to work in the Casualty Clearing Stations in the area during the First World War.

Gemma finds Alice's letters and reads them during her time in France, alongside Tom, the builder she meets and who she asks to help with the farmhouse.

I liked Gemma very much. She has to learn to be happy again, but it's a struggle for her and she doesn't know what her place in the world might be. Reading Alice's thoughts, and of the atrocities that took place 100 years in the past, aids her recovery somehow.

But whereas I liked Gemma, I loved Alice. I thought she was gutsy, clever and as independent as she could be, especially for the era she was living in, although it's well known that war changes all that is normal. Her story is moving and heartbreaking and by the end of the book I had shed a few tears.

The scenes in 1916-1918 are vivid and I could imagine the horror of being so close to the Somme and to explosions, and the CCS where injured men were coming in faster than they could be dealt with.

The one thing that slightly let the book down for me was that I didn't feel like the two strands were as closely woven together as they could perhaps have been, in that for much of the book it felt like two completely unrelated stories. I'm not sure how it could have been done differently but I'd just have liked more of a link. But it's only a minor issue and overall I found The Poppy Field to be a romantic, moving and haunting read and one which is ideal to read in the year that marks 100 years since the end of the war that should have ended all wars. ( )

I received a free copy of this e-book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Moving and emotional? Meh.

I did not like the part of the novel set in modern times. The romance seemed so contrived and honestly had my eyes rolling at the plethora of awkward encounters between our two prospective lovers.

The half of the novel set during World War I was definitely the more interesting part, but even after a bit, it felt too predictable.

By the end, everything was wrapped up with a perfect bow on top. It was too easy. I wanted more drama, more conflict.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible book and could be considered a "clean" romance, if you're into that.

I don't really see myself recommending this to patrons, primarily because there are so many other outstanding books set in the same time period. ( )