Martin nodded but said nothing. He was worried that decreasing visibility from the rain and sleet would hamper their efforts. German barrages still concentrated on positions they’d left more than an hour ago, but it wouldn’t be long before they adjusted their sights to put the Nineteenth in danger. Continual movement was critical.
“Not much opposition,” Martin said to Nully.
“Can’t last, sir. Have to get on with consolidating our position.”
“Right.”
Martin heard the rumble of tanks advancing on their left and checked his watch. Beyond the hulking machines, he could see the vague outline of soldiers from another brigade. These men would lip-frog the Nineteenth and continue to push forward, leaving German forces almost no time to exit their deep dugouts and defend against the infantry advance. Once again, the sky filled with howling madness.
“Dig in. Over here, dig in,” Martin shouted to be heard. “Bernstein, get your machinegun working. Hurry. I need it now.”
Less than ten feet away, Bernstein knelt on the ground and flipped open the front legs that steadied the gun. Kirby stretched beside him and readied a belt of ammunitions. The rest of Martin’s platoon fanned out along a low ledge of sandbags. Nully crouched nearby waiting for orders. A group of signalers began to dig a cable trench, two of them carrying a huge roll of wire. Shells burst to their left.

Although Time and Regret by M.K. Tod is presented as an historical with mystery elements, by the end of the novel I had the impression it was actually more centered on Grace’s romance. The story proceeds on a dual timeline, one in 1915-19 where Martin takes part to WWI, and one in 1991 where Grace – Martin’s granddaughter – tries to solve a puzzle Martin left for her to solve.
To do so, Grace flies to France from New York and there she meets a man she falls for.
Her romance with Pierre is one of those that romance readers will love. Personally, not being a romance reader, I preferred Martin’s timeline, with the experience of war.
WWI was one of the most horrid European experiences of the XX century, and only because WWII was even worse, what WWI did to this continent is often forgotten. But it left millions of dead, millions of people maimed in the body and soul (mostly young people), destruction everywhere, a terrible economic and political situation and a world that was forever changing and was not stable yet.
M.K. Todd succeeds in giving a good image of how this all began in the trenches of WWI. The destruction, the death, the chocking sensation that what was before is lost and what’s ahead might not be a future worth living. This all comes off in the long sections of Martin’s war experience and give a very strong impression of it, especially in the central part of the novel.
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8 Comments
Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies
This sounds terrific. The description of the battle preparations is so vivid. From the synopsis info you provide, this sounds like something I may want to read!
jazzfeathers
The 1991 part was a little bit too romance for me, but the WWI part was well done 🙂
Damyanti
Sounds like a fascinating story, Sarah.
jazzfeathers
A bit of history, a bit of mystery and more than a bit of romance. It was a very diverse read 😉
Carrie-Anne
It really is tragic how WWI is such a forgotten war these days, particularly considering all the devastating consequences it had. There were so many books and films written about it in the early postwar years, but now it’s a rather uncommon subject. The most popular wars to write about seem to be WWII, Vietnam, and the American Civil War.
jazzfeathers
I’m reading about WWI these days, in preparation for my NaNoWriMo project, which will be set in Weimar Berlin in 1924, and I’m shocked to discover this war. We don’t really realise what kind of devastating experience it was, not only the war itself, but also the change it brought about, which was the dying of the old world and the birth (in good and bad) of the new one.
Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense
I’m not a huge romance reader, but I don’t mind it. That being said, if I think a book focuses too heavily on the romance and puts the more interesting elements in the background, I grow frustrated. Not sure how I feel about dual timelines, was it ever confusing or jolting to switch from one to the other?
jazzfeathers
I’m like that too. The romance part were a bit demanting for me.
No, the dual timeline was never confusing, because they were so different. One narrator was a woman in the 1990s, telling in first person her story, most of which was a holiday in France. The other narrator was a young man in 1915-18 WWI trences telling his story int eh third person.
I like dual timelines, where they are done well. I’ve even read novels with multiple timelines and didn’t find them confusing… thanks to the author’s skill 😉