Two Storm Wood: Uncover an unsettling mystery of World War One in the The Times Thriller of the Year

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This was a fascinating book which I found gripping, and difficult to step away from. The utter bleakness of the battlefields is painted in shades of unrelenting brown and grey, and the mud almost becomes another character in the book. The unravelling of the mystery is not a sudden reveal, but a gradual discovery like the identification of a decayed body. It is a book that communicates even more on a re-read as the knowledge of the conclusion gives more weight to seemingly throwaway sentences. I think this is a book that would be of interest to thriller readers and those interested in the First World War, but would also appeal to a wider audience. By the international bestselling author of The Piano Tuner, a sweeping and unforgettable love story of a young doctor and nurse at a remote field hospital in the First World War. Rather than tell a story of war with a soldier at its center, Philip Gray has crafted a historical thriller in which a gutsy heroine goes searching for answers on the empty battlefields of the Western Front.... Refreshingly different. It’s also not just a straight war book. How do I put this without spoiling it….there are some mysteries, some red herrings, some tantalising secrets that will keep you hooked and wanting more. For me, it was a very claustrophobic story, you don’t feel relaxed until you reach the end, you get this constant idea that someone’s watching you, that you’re being suffocated.

An incredibly atmospheric book that evokes the desolation of the Great War's battlefields whilst telling the story from various perspectives of a atrocity discovered after the armistice by a search party for bodies left . The veterans are all great characters. The author is visibly interested in the damaging power of the experience of war. All his characters are damaged in one way or another. Some of them are clearly irreparably so, but for others, there is hope, and this too – I think – is historically accurate. All are so realistically built that I deeply cared about all of them, even the more ambiguous. Their humanity was what came through, their personal experiences creating compassion that didn’t disappear even in the face of the most gruesome revelations.The horror elements of the book were amazing, the feeling of being watched by the millions of dead on the battlefields was always with you, as the mystery of the story unfolded. I found myself picturing how I would act and be there, in those situations, and truly I could never picture the 40 year old me doing what Amy does. Immersive and eerily atmospheric, Gray’s novel delivers vivid historic detail and gripping suspense, aligning more closely with Dan Simmons’s Drood(2009) and Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollowthan to most WWI thrillers. Although the novel is deftly plotted and the atmosphere all distorting fog and claustrophobic dugouts, its achievement lies in Gray's finely worked portraits of the pity of war - those damaged by conflict and those who have to deal with its mind-altering consequences. The Times In this thriller set on the battlefields of the Somme after the end of World War I, a woman investigates the disappearance of her fiancé. Three months after the end of the Great War, a young woman sets out across the wastelands of the Western Front to learn the fate of the man she loved.

In his historical novel Two Storm Wood, Philip Gray portrays the reality of World War I mostly from the perspective of a young British officer, showing everything from the gruesome and harrowing details of war to lesser-known facts of everyday life for those serving in it. This reality includes substance use and abuse among troops. Drugs that are now heavily controlled, notably cocaine, were not only sought after by soldiers during the war but even encouraged and distributed by militaries, including the British Army. There’s a lot to love about this book, but I think the characters will be what will remain with me longer. The characters were well and sympathetically drawn and the excitement was ratchet up as the plot developed. On the desolate battlefields of northern France, the guns of the Great War are silent. Special battalions now face the dangerous task of gathering up the dead for mass burial. Two Storm Wood follows the stories of three British people whose lives have been affected by war in very different ways: a young woman who boldly sets out to find out what happened to her fiancé, who went missing in action; a soldier tasked with co-ordinating the retrieval of the dead; and a detective sent to investigate what appears to be a series of murders in the empty, devastated landscape.Immersive and eerily atmospheric, Gray's novel delivers vivid historic detail and gripping suspense." Booklist (starred review) - Christine Tran One of the most evocative thrillers I’ve ever read.… Haunting, cinematic, and utterly gripping." D. B. John

Normal?’ Westwood repeated the word as if it were unfamiliar to him. ‘I suppose if it were normal, I wouldn’t have been sent here.’ Her stalwart approach annoys the army officials who are tasked with the horrendous job of recovering the bodies of these soldiers and trying to identify them and then burying in the cemetery’s that have been commissioned by the War Graves Commission.. British author Gray lays bare the horrors of World War I through an Englishwoman’s battlefield search for her fiance.

Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. For some unknown reason, I don’t normally gravitate towards WW1 books when I’m reading, but that may change after reading this one. It was the perfect blend of thriller and historical fiction that had me on the edge of my seat more than once while reading it. Atmospheric and meticulously researched, Two Storm Wood sheds light on the horrors and the trauma that continued even after the Armistice. It is that most wonderful of creations-a novel that informs while keeping you on the edge of your seat." - Abir Mukherjee

And then there are some kind of men for whom violence brings clarity. They embrace the elemental force of it. Rules and other abstractions… Well, I couldn’t expect you to understand.’ Beautifully and elegantly written, impeccably researched, full of facts and details about the Great War, a love story and a detective mystery all mixed up in one intoxicating brew. There have been many , many novels of love and loss in the trenches of the war, usually of the Downtown Abbey gloss. But never have I read , or seen depicted the ghastly story of the efforts to find and identify those hundred of thousands who lay in unmarked graves in France. This is where Amy goes to face the reality of what the war of the trenches meant to men like Edward. Along with the mystery of what happened to Edward, is another mystery, that of someone who is murdering soldiers. This is not a horror story or a mystery novel . It is a love story of Amy and Edward, of love and loss and courage. Some warned that the descriptions of battle, while a realistic portrayal of the horrors of war, may be upsetting for those sensitive to violence and gore.Atmospheric and meticulously researched, Two Storm Wood sheds light on the horrors and the trauma that continued even after the Armistice. It is that most wonderful of creations—a novel that informs while keeping you on the edge of your seat. Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have. Yet it is also a social commentary of that time. Class and gender are measured against the conflict, and the impetus to change a divided, unequal society. A war story, a thriller, a love story and a critical look at the British class system and the pain and havoc it wrought at the time - all expertly woven into a terrific novel.