*pg 17 and I'm bawling already! Thank heaven the blurb says there is a happy ending!*

My word, but I feel like I've been through the wringer! For me, this is the best book of the series, even though the mystery aspect is not as pervasive as in previous books. (I must qualify that statement by saying that there is a 9th book pending, which may alter that.)

I love these characters so much! Watching them grow and mature has been sheer pleasure. Through all of their changes, Jonty and Orlando remain absolutely true and recognizable.

The first half of this book is gut-wrenching and, I feel, is the stronger half. The second half becomes almost too rife with coincidence/divine intervention (an Orlando/Jonty debate) but does not ultimately detract from the book as a whole.

An extremely emotional book that requires tissues at hand! ( )

I was dreading to read this chapter in the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, because it was the one I was expecting and at the same time I didn’t want to happen. For the last few books I was counting the years, 1906, 1907, 1908… it was like an ominous dripping towards those dreadful 1914 and the IWW. From the like Orlando and Jonty, it was obvious they wouldn’t step back, and the IWW was such a bloodbath, more like men sent to the slaughter than a noble war, and these fellows can only play with honor.

So when I read the blurb of this book, 1918, end of the war, and Jonty lost in war, I thought that is, the worst happened, and how I can find the heart to read this novel? Sure the author told me not to worry, that she had everything planned for both of them, but still… it was not until I didn’t see there was a book 9 that I found the courage to consider book 8. Hands up, I’m a coward, yes, I am.

But I didn’t come out unscathed from the experience of reading this book, since, well, the losses are more than what I was expecting: Jonty’s parents, those wonderful parents who not only supported their own son, but welcomed Orlando too, are lost as well; I felt these losses as much as I felt that of Jonty, so much they were part of this series. It’s really sad to think I will continue to read this series knowing they will not be there, with their love and welcoming embrace; they are probably one of the main reasons why Orlando even considered to share a life with Jonty, knowing they were not scandalized by the love between them; if good people could look at them and have love in their heart, then Orlando could look as well to what he had with Jonty and not being afraid.

All in all the novel was less tragic then what I was thinking, meaning that, it basically skipped all the gory details of the war, to plunge you directly in the aftermath, when hope was blossoming again; actually it was almost warm, comfort-like, the light at the end of the dark tunnel that was the war.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609283996/?tag=elimyrevandra-20