This was the most beautiful, tragic, heartbreaking and stunning book. Just amazing! Although this book was painful to read, I was transfixed. The love story between Gaunt and Ellwood was sweet and tender. Yet, all the characters had my heart. This book brought me to tears a number of times. It never shies away from the brutality, inaneness and devastation of war. And I was left with the utter sadness of knowing that it was only a few decades later that the world was to be embroiled in another world war.