In Memoriam by Alice Winn

A gripping, heart-shattering love story between two soldiers in the First World War

'Assured, affecting and moving. Alice Winn has written a devastating love story between two young men . . . Gaunt and Ellwood will live in your mind long after you've closed the final pages' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

TIn 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that Ellwood is in love with him, always has been.

When Gaunt's German mother asks him to enlist as an officer in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, Gaunt signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from following him to the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him. Before long, their classmates have followed suit.

Once in the trenches, Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, but their friends are all dying, right in front of them, and at any moment they could be next. An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.

'One of the best debuts I've read in recent years: immersive, rousing, tender and devastating. In Memoriam is both a deeply moving love story and a visceral evocation of the Great War . . . I loved it with a startling ferocity' ELIZABETH DAY

'BIRDSONG for a new generation. . . an unforgettable novel, one I stayed up all night to finish, with characters I loved almost as much as they loved each other' JOANNA QUINN

'Like looking at a black and white photograph which has been colourised, and suddenly you understand that these shadowy people from the past also dreamed and cried and breathed just as we do now. I was completely absorbed, moved, and transported' CLAIRE FULLER

'I read through the night to finish this blistering debut, too feverishly engrossed to sleep. When was the last time characters in a novel seemed so real to me, so cherishable, so alive? An extraordinary love story... this is a novel that claims both beauty and brutality, the whole range of human life.' GARTH GREENWELL, AUTHOR OF CLEANNESS and WHAT BELONGS TO YOU

Hardback / 400 pages