Angus Macdonald

Donald Peter Gillies, or DP, is a young Scots soldier stationed at Gallipoli in World War I. He ends up in a field hospital looked after by a young Welsh nurse, Louise, after he is wounded in a sniper incident where he was captured and tortured by the Turks.
The story is told in alternating first-person POVs, mostly DP, and goes back and forth with the story of their current plight and reminiscences of home. DP came from the Ardnish peninsula on the West coast of Scotland. It's a lovely show more rural place where the living is hard and the history is rich. Meanwhile, things go wrong when DP and Louise are being transported to a hospital ship and they end up on a hazardous cross-country trip across Turkey and Greece. All during their trek, DP entertains Louise with his stories of home.
This is such a lovely story. It's told very simply in the cadence of the people who are the narrators. The gruesome war narrative in Turkey contrasts sharply with the clean beauty of the Highlands and the stories of DP's life there.
I picked this up in a bookstore in Fort William as a backup when my tablet ran out of battery life on a hike up the Great Glen Way. I'm so glad I did. While the story concentrates on the lives of the specific people involved, there is also a lot of history that I knew little about. I heartily recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction. show less

Donald lies injured on the beach after fighting at Gallipoli. There he encounters Louise a nurse looking after the soldiers until they can be evacuated.

Through the stories they tell each other we learn of the homes they came from and the war experiences that led them to the beach.

They then undergo a hazardous journey together with a fellow nurse.

An amazing story which pulls no punches to the horror of WWI. It transposes this with the almost idyllic life Donald had lived at Ardnish that he show more dreams of returning to.

I look forward to reading the other books in the series show less