Fascinating solid read! ________4.5

The Woman at the Front by Lecia Cornwall          

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Compelling story about a young woman’s fight to be recognized as a doctor during WW1 by her family, her community and the War Office. It’s 1918, the allies are being hammered on the Western Front. All Eleanor Atherton wants to do is follow her calling. She’s hampered by the times. Women doctors are given no respect. They “weren’t wanted by the military, the War Office, or even the Red Cross, no matter how competent or willing they might be.” They are seen by many as betraying feminine standards in general, and as the weaker sex. Rather than be exposed to the brutalities of the war and life in the trenches, they should have their sensibilities protected. They should undertake “more ladylike pursuits.” I loved it when Eleanor told an undersecretary in the War Office that she didn’t knit, she embroidered to ensure her suturing would be perfect.

Then a series of circumstances has Eleanor agreeing to journey to France for the local landowner, the Countess of Kirkwall, to the Casualty Clearing Station at Sainte-Croix. She’s been tasked to bring home her twin brother’s childhood friend, Louis Chastaine, Viscount Somerton, who’s  recently inherited the family title. Louis was the younger son and this is not what he wants. Louis is a talented pilot who just wants to keep doing what he loves the most. Enroute to Arras, at Calais, Eleanor is befriended by a stretcher bearer, Sergeant Fraser MacLeod, a man whose ready acceptance of her as a doctor gives her strength.

A series of mishaps and the surge of injured at the Front has Eleanor tending to casualties, despite the rigidity of the commanding officer and the matron. The wounded and dying only cared that she was a doctor.

Talk about an innocent abroad! There were moments at Calais when she was in real trouble. The scenes at the front are horrific. Eleanor demonstrates she has the stomach and the determination to use her talents, and to answer her calling, legal or not. The truly harrowing experiences described really do expose the human cost of war. 

Eleanor finally accepts her fractured familial relationships, which is an underlying sorrow. Her relationship with her twin I found troubling.

Cornwell’s author’s notes give more clarity about the roles and regulations of personnel at this time, and the fighting conditions on the Front for Allied forces. Places mentioned like Vimy Ridge resound for many.

The romantic aspects round Eleanor’s character out, although the coincidences did sort of annoy me, as did Eleanor’s behavior with her family. 

Despite this I found myself absorbed in both Eleanor’s struggles with mores of the time and with the conditions on the Front.

A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley 

Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change