We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

Shoulder the Sky (World War I Series, Novel 2)

ebook / ISBN-13: 9780755383184

Price: £9.99

ON SALE: 25th November 2010

Genre: Fiction & Related Items / Crime & Mystery

Select a format:

Paperback

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

It is the spring of 1915, but deep in the trenches, there is no summer in sight…

Shoulder the Sky is the second novel in Anne Perry’s insightful and harrowing quintet charting the English experience of the First World War. Perfect for fans of Pat Barker and Sebastian Barry.


‘The plot of this book is riveting throughout; the elegance of the prose and depth of characterisation combine to create a powerful and poignant journey into the past that long stays with you after the final page’ – The Lady

By April of 1915, as chaplain Joseph Reavley tends to the soldiers in his care, the nightmare of trench warfare is impartially cutting down England’s youth. On one of his rescue forays into no-man’s-land, Joseph finds the body of an arrogant war correspondent, Eldon Prentice. A nephew of the respected General Owen Cullingford, Prentice was despised for his prying attempts to elicit facts that would turn public opinion against the war. Most troublesome to Joseph, Prentice has been killed not by German fire but, apparently, by one of his own compatriots. What Englishman hated Prentice enough to kill him? Joseph is afraid he may know, and his sister, Judith, who is General Cullingford’s driver and translator, harbours her own fearful suspicions.

Meanwhile, Joseph and Judith’s brother, Matthew, an intelligence officer in London, continues his quiet search for the sinister figure they call the Peacemaker, who, like Eldon Prentice, is trying to undermine the public support for the struggle-and, as the Reavley family has good reason to believe, is in fact at the heart of a fantastic plot to reshape the entire world. An intimate of kings, the Peacemaker kills with impunity, and his dark shadow stretches from the peaceful country lanes of Cambridgeshire to the twin hells of Ypres and Gallipoli.

What readers are saying about Shoulder the Sky:

‘She makes the horror and futility nightmarishly real but not a cliché’

I feel immersed in the world she is creating’

‘A real page-turner with strong literary merit

What's Inside

Read More Read Less

Reviews

Praise for Anne Perry: The plot of this book is riveting throughout; the elegance of the prose and depth of characterisation combine to create a powerful and poignant journey into the past that long stays with you after the final page
The Lady
An absorbing tale
Kirkus Reviews
The writer weaves her compelling fiction around a graphic account of the horror of First World War trench warfare that has not been bettered since Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong
Nottingham Evening Post
Perry cleverly resolves some plot lines while reserving the solution of others for future mysteries... she does a superb job of bringing the grimness and waste to life, in a nice shift of gears from her two 19th-century historical series
Publishers Weekly
Very enjoyable and gripping
Glasgow Evening Times
Perry fans will not be disappointed
Huddersfield Daily Examiner
An entertaining, suspenseful thriller... Perry is a skillful purveyor of popular fiction
The Washington Post
Perry's bent for action and suspense greatly enlivens the story... She is a careful researcher and adept storyteller. But those talents have taken a quantum leap with the World War I series
The Star-Ledger
Excellent... [Perry] does a superb job
Publishers Weekly