Category: Books

Simply Held November Authors: Clive Cussler and Kat Martin

- Stephanie 2 Comments

Want the hottest new release from your favorite author? Want to stay current with a celebrity book club? Love nonfiction and fiction? You should join Simply Held. Choose any author, celebrity pick, nonfiction and/or fiction pick and the Davenport Public Library will put the latest title on hold for you automatically. Select as many as you want! If you still have questions, please check out our list of FAQs.

New month means new highlighted authors from Simply Held. November’s authors are Clive Cussler for fiction and Kat Martin for romance.

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Our November fiction author is Clive Cussler. Clive passed away in 2020, but works continue being written bearing his name with the help of many other authors. He has five best-selling series including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Fargo. In addition to his fiction works, Clive has also written numerous nonfiction books. His books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries. Clive writes primarily thrillers. In addition to writing, Clive is considered an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks. He was also the founder of the National Underwater Marine Agency, (NUMA), a nonprofit organization that works to preserve American maritime and naval history, searching for lost shops of historic significance. They have discovered over sixty historically significant underwater wreck sites.

Cussler’s newest book is The Sea Wolves, published in November 2022. This is book thirteen in the Isaac Bell Adventure series written by Jack Du BRul.

Curious what this book is about? Check out the following description provided by the author:

Detective Isaac Bell battles foreign spies, German U-boats, and an old nemesis to capture a secret technology that could alter the outcome of World War I in the latest adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Clive Cussler.

As New England swelters in the summer of 1914, Detective Isaac Bell is asked to investigate a cache of missing rifles—only to discover something much more sinister. Whoever broke into this Winchester Factory wasn’t looking to take weapons, they wanted to leave something in the shipping crates: a radio transmitter, set to summon a fleet of dreaded German U-boats. Someone is trying to keep American supplies from reaching British shores, and if Bell doesn’t crack the conspiracy in time, the Atlantic Ocean will run red with blood.

Bell must hunt down a new piece of technology that is allowing the Germans to rule the seas from New York to England. With the outcome of the war at stake and Franklin Roosevelt’s orders on the line, Bell will risk everything to stop the U-Boats before they strike again.

This book is also available in the following formats:

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Our November romance author is Kat Martin. Kat has written over sixty historical and contemporary romantic suspense novels. More than sixteen million copies of her books are in print. She has been published in over twenty countries. Kat currently lives in Missoula, Montana with her husband, L.J. Martin, who writes westerns. Kat writes romantic suspense, historical romance, and paranormal romance.

Martin’s newest book is One Last Chance, published in November 2022. This is book three in Blood Ties, The Logans series.

Curious what this book is about? Below is a description provided by the publisher:

New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin mixes high-octane adventure with sizzling romance for an explosive thriller featuring a dangerous cult, an ex Green Beret, and a female private investigator who will stop at nothing to rescue her missing sister and unmask the high-stakes conspiracy at the heart of the Children of the Sun…

Former Green Beret Edge Logan has made a new life for himself at Nighthawk Security in Denver, using his finely honed skills to neutralize threats of all kinds. When he overhears friend and fellow agent Skye Delaney discussing a new case involving her missing sister and a mysterious cult, he offers himself as backup. With her own military background, Skye is gutsy and more than capable, but a cult like Children of the Sun is too risky for anyone to investigate alone.

Skye is grateful for Edge’s experience, even though she is aware of the attraction simmering between them. Her battle scars make her reluctant to get involved with anyone, much less a coworker—even a warrior like Edge. But infiltrating the cult’s compound is more complicated than expected—and something much more sinister than worship is clearly going on behind its walls. As the pair works against the clock to unearth high-stakes secrets, the personal barriers between them begin to crumble. Together, can they unmask the face of evil before their time runs out?

Mystery Reads: Veronica Speedwell Mystery series by Deanna Raybourn

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“Everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Curious Beginning

The Veronica Speedwell mystery series by Deanna Raybourn has been recommended to me many times by multiple library staff, but I only recently decided to give it a listen. The first in this series is A Curious Beginning, released in 2015. I thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to Veronica’s world. She is a sassy young woman who knows what she wants and isn’t going to let a few measly men stand in her way.

London, 1887. Veronica Speedwell’s aunt has just died, which has proven to be both a sad and exciting event. Sad because Veronica officially now has no family left. Exciting because Veronica has big plans: she is going to travel the world hunting for more of her precious butterflies in her job as a natural historian. On the day she is slated to start her journey, disaster strikes. Someone attempts to abduct Veronica, which proves to be only a minor inconvenience when a German baron appears out of nowhere to rescue her. Once Veronica and the Baron arrive somewhere new, he introduces her to his friend Stoker. Cashing in on a debt, the Baron offers Veronica sanctuary with Stoker until he is able to figure out who wants to do her harm. Despite Stoker’s bad tempered nature, Veronica is intrigued by this man, mostly as he is also a natural historian. The two form a wary acquaintance that changes when they learn that the Baron has been murdered. As soon as they learn the devastating news, Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run. After all, someone is still after Veronica and maybe now even after Stoker. The two decide to team up to discover the truth behind the Baron’s murder, discovering many other hidden secrets along the way.

This book is available in the following formats:

Veronica Speedwell Mystery series

  1. A Curious Beginning (2015)
  2. A Perilous Undertaking (2017)
  3. A Treacherous Curse (2018)
  4. A Dangerous Collaboration (2019)
  5. A Murderous Relation (2020)
  6. An Unexpected Peril (2021)
  7. An Impossible Impostor (2022)
  8. A Sinister Revenge (2023)

My Favorite Books as Taylor Swift’s New Album

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Recently Taylor Swift’s new album Midnights snagged all top ten spots on the US Billboard charts, a major and unprecedented coup. On a more personal note, I’ve had at least one of the songs from the album stuck in my head on and off since I first listened to the album — and you probably have too, if you’ve listened to it. So I decided to make lemonade from lemons and tell you how my English major brain has associated songs from Midnights with different books. All the books (and very soon the album) are available for checkout from our library, so you can double-check my findings for yourself.

“So real, I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say / No deal, the 1950s shit they want for me / I just wanna stay in that lavender haze”

When I listen to Lavender Haze I hear love that pushes against expectations and conventions for what a relationship should look like, and therefore think immediately of The Love Study by Kris Ripper, which is only the first of a trilogy all about relationships outside of conventional norms, and about customizing your relationship to what works for you.

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“The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine onto me / And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was / The mark you saw on my collarbone, the rust that grew between telephones / The lips I used to call home, so scarlet, it was maroon”

Maroon to me is about a vivid, passionate love that ended, and is remembered, as vividly as it lived. For sheer emotional power, and the strength of love and memory, this song has to be The King of Infinite Space by Lyndsay Faye. This book is an unforgettable Hamlet retelling with a powerful (and, spoilers, doomed) love at its core.

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“It’s me / Hi! / I’m the problem, it’s me / At teatime / Everybody agrees / I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero”

Antihero is the song I (and many others) can’t get out of our heads — it’s catchy, self-aware, self-destructive, and self-deprecating, with paranoid fear of losing relationships and (for me anyway) a hint of glamour. What it made me think of is my favorite romance book of all time, Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall (the sequel, Husband Material, works as well) because of its self-deprecating humor, self-destructive tendencies, and an unforgettableness not unlike an earworm.

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“Are we falling like / Snow at the beach / Weird but it was beautiful / Flying in a dream / Stars by the pocketful / You wanting me / Tonight / Feels impossible / But it’s comin’ down, no sound, it’s all around”

Snow on the Beach is all dreamlike, surreal vibes, with a star-crossed type romance running through it, which for me echoes the magical realism in One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston. Our lovable leads in that book find themselves in a similarly bizarre situation which they end up embracing.

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“What’s a girl gonna do? A diamond’s gotta shine / Best believe I’m still bejeweled when I walk in the room / I can still make the whole place shimmer”

Now, I fully believe you’ll have a better pick for this one, but Bejeweled‘s theme of claiming your power from a repressive relationship made me think of In Deeper Waters by FT Lukens, because among other things this book is about the main character embracing his power and identity and breaking free from fear and repression, and I just love to see it.

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“Sweet like honey, karma is a cat / Purring in my lap ’cause it loves me / Flexing like a goddamn acrobat / Me and karma vibe like that”

Okay, another unconventional pick, but the smugness of Karma, waiting for the other shoe to drop, reminded me of An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten. Our elderly protagonist is similarly convinced of the justice of her actions – to very entertaining effect.

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“Everyone’s up to somethin’ / I find myself runnin’ home to your sweet nothings / Outside, they’re push and shovin’ / You’re in the kitchen hummin’ / All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothin'”

Sweet Nothing is about finding a haven and home in someone who doesn’t burdern you with the expectations and pressure you receive everywhere else, which for me had to be The Bookseller’s Boyfriend by Heidi Cullinan. Also a cautionary tale about celebrity and social media, the romance in this book is all about an overworked, overwhelmed person finding rest in another’s company.

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“So I told you none of it was accidental / And the first night that you saw me, nothing was gonna stop me / I laid the groundwork and then saw a wide smirk / On your face, you knew the entire time / You knew that I’m a mastermind / And now you’re mine”

Not exactly the same vibe, but Mastermind‘s ending, when the singer realizes that though they thought they were being subtle, they were actually transparent to their partner, reminded me of Love is for Losers by Wibke Brueggemann, in which another scheming narrator discovers the joy of being known and accepted for all your faults.

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Let us know, do you agree with my associations? Which books would you pick?

They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

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If you like feminist, multi-generational sagas of mothers and daughters struggling to love and trust each other across an abyss of misunderstandings and generational trauma — with a hint of ghost story mixed in for the bargain, you should try reading They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe.

It starts with Regina in 1881, a woman scorned, and a terrible accident in the dead of night. Then, in the present, we meet Meredith, a woman stinging from the split from her wife, and her young daughter Alice. With the end of her relationship Meredith has been drawn irresistibly back to her childhood home and to her troubled, distant mother Judith, who is now forgetful and more convinced than ever that evil is waiting in the ocean for them. As the little family struggles against what seems like their inevitable doom, the reader meets their ancestors: Grace, who can’t give up hope that her mother Regina will return; Beth, crushed by depression and grief, even in pregnancy; Diana, who wishes it would all just go away; and finally Judith as she was, a child desperate to understand all the heartbreak around her. And there’s another woman – a mysterious red-haired girl who appears around every corner as disaster after disaster rocks Meredith’s conviction that the curse isn’t real. Finally, at the end of her rope, Meredith has had enough and declares that one way or another, the curse ends with her – but so have all the women before her…

For the most part, this is a deeply unhappy book, and that can be very hard to read. But the determination of women is always inspiring, and the author is kind enough to give a ray of hope at the end. The book it most reminded me of is The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb (a superb retelling of The Little Mermaid story featuring the power of music) with its themes of mothers and daughters, a curse passed down the line, and the irresistible call of the ocean. In this case, however, it’s more of a ghost story with a hint of witches thrown in. The multiple time jumps add a sense of history and fate to the central conflict of Meredith vs. the curse, and honestly the chance to meet so many women that are all distinct and different and complicated, and deal with the curse in their own ways, is fascinating to read and shows the author’s skill.

That said, while the characters are vivid and realistic, they’re not necessarily your favorite people. Meredith for instance, with whom we spend the most time, is stubborn, close-minded, and hopelessly out of her depth in a supernatural conflict, not to mention a conflicted parent. Even Judith, who we root for as someone fighting the curse, is cold and distant to her daughter and generally does poorly in her personal relationships – which for me at least was not endearing to read. But again, this is partly the mark of a skilled writer showing that people are not always heroic or villainous but shades of gray; the inclusion of a lesbian main character in a nuanced and complicated family relationship is also refreshing to see.

Don’t miss They Drown Our Daughters for a complicated family saga, a slow-burning horror story, and a meditation on home and belonging.

November’s Celebrity Book Club Picks

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It’s a new month which means that Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon have picked new books for their book clubs! Reminder that if you join Simply Held, these titles will automatically be put on hold for you.

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Jenna Bush Hager has selected The Cloisters by Katy Hays for her November pick.

Curious what The Cloisters is about? Check out the following description provided by the publisher:

In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” (Sarah Penner, author of The Lost Apothecary) debut novel, a circle of researchers uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.

When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.

Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.

A haunting and magical blend of genres, The Cloisters is a gripping debut that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

This book is also available in the following format:

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Reese Witherspoon has selected Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed as her November pick.

Curious what Tiny Beautiful Things is about? Check out the following description provided by the author.

THE REESE’S BOOK CLUB NOVEMBER PICK • An anniversary edition of the bestselling collection of “Dear Sugar” advice columns written by the author of #1 New York Times bestseller Wild—featuring a new preface and six additional columns. Soon to be a Hulu Original series.

For more than a decade, thousands of people have sought advice from Dear Sugar—the pseudonym of bestselling author Cheryl Strayed—first through her online column at The Rumpus, later through her hit podcast, Dear Sugars, and now through her popular Substack newsletter. Tiny Beautiful Things collects the best of Dear Sugar in one volume, bringing her wisdom to many more readers. This tenth-anniversary edition features six new columns and a new preface by Strayed. Rich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.

Join Simply Held to have Oprah, Jenna, and Reese’s adult selections automatically put on hold for you!

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

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In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own in This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger.

Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. Through perseverance, courage and luck, the four make their way to St Louis where Odie and Albert believe their aunt lives. What the four of them experience along their journey shapes and changes them in profound ways, as well as providing us with a glimpse of Depression era America.

The cruelty and oppression that the children faced at the Indian school is heartbreaking although the true depth of the corruption is revealed in bits and pieces. The narrow escapes and unexpected lucky breaks make this an exciting and absorbing book, all overlaid with the tension of whether Odie and Albert will be able to find their aunt.

If you are taking part in the Online Reading Challenge this year, this book is a good choice for our November theme of issues facing contemporary Native Americans.

The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister

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“Women can do far more than the narrow lens of society deems fitting. I suspect there is nothing, literally nothing, of which women are not capable.”
― Greer Macallister, The Arctic Fury

Greer Macallister is an author who frequently pops up in review journals, but admittedly an author that I have never read. When I saw her latest book, The Arctic Fury, on the shelves, I decided to give it a try. The premise was fascinating: a group of women explorers heads to the Arctic in search of missing men. Yes please.

1855 – Lady Jane Franklin is gathering women to travel to the Arctic to find the ships of her husband’s lost expedition. Virginia Reeve has been summoned by her with the enticing offer to lead these dozen women. Every other expedition she has sent has failed. At her wit’s end, Lady Franklin has decided to send all women and to let the women, specifically Virginia, make all the decisions. The catch: if the women fail, she will deny any knowledge of said expedition. If they succeed, she will pay handsomely. The women just need to bring back Lady Franklin’s husband if alive, and if not, they should bring back word of what they have discovered.

Virginia Reeve believes she knows why she has chosen, all thanks to an article written by a woman journalist. She has led over 400 people to safety across the west, but this voyage will be her first trip to the Arctic. All preparations for the journey have been made by/through Lady Franklin’s envoy, Brooks. Virginia is allowed to select a handful of women to round out the crew selected by Lady Franklin herself. When the women meet up to start their expedition, none of them have any idea what awaits them on the ice.

This story is told through flashbacks. In present, Virginia is on trial for one count of kidnapping and murder. Through flashbacks, readers learn more about the women’s perilous trek north, what led Virginia to lead this mission, as well as a look into various expedition members’ backgrounds. I found some of the sections to be dull, while others had me on edge wondering what would happen next. Overall, I enjoyed this book and can’t wait to see what the author writes next.

This book is also available in the following format:

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

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If you like Dracula, Rebecca, Mexican Gothic, Plain Bad Heroines, or Priory of the Orange Tree, you’ll probably want to read House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson. This sapphic take on vampire lore is a lush, gory, hedonistic roller coaster with a dash of social commentary to boot, and it will definitely take your breath away.

Marion Shaw’s world is strictly divided — there’s North and South, haves and have-nots. She has always been strictly in the “have-nots” camp, struggling to survive in the slums of Prane, a city in the South. When she gets the chance for a different life, she jumps for it. The only people who move from South to North, from poor to rich, are the bloodmaids: young women (always young, always women) who are employed specifically so their wealthy patrons can drain and drink their blood to protect their health. In exchange, bloodmaids get generous pensions at the end of their tenure. Marion is lucky enough to be employed by the noble House of Hunger, to bleed for the Countess Lisavet, who is beautiful, enigmatic, alluring… and desperately in need of blood to prop up her failing health. Even as Marion falls hard (and bleeds hard) for her magnetic employer, she can’t deny the signs that something is wrong; household members are disappearing, the bloodmaids are becoming ill to the point of madness, and Lisavet keeps disappearing somewhere at night. If Marion doesn’t figure out what’s going on soon, she’ll lose more than a little blood in the House of Hunger.

I loved that this is a version of the vampire story that blurs the line between monster and victim — Marion is definitely no damsel in distress, and takes action for herself, even to the point of crossing moral lines where need be. Her and Lisavet’s queerness is also clear and unapologetic, refreshingly, but unfortunately the book is still not particularly sex-positive. The lush worldbuilding of the novel — while very atmospheric — is mostly about showing how decadent and corrupt the nobility is, wallowing in every kind of vice, which ends up making any sexuality in the book feel  hedonistic and distasteful, lumped in with the rampant and destructive drug use.

What is very effective about that, however, is the social commentary underlying it; the reader cannot help but come away thinking about how much wealth is wasted on these kinds of activities while workers like Marion can barely make ends meet to survive. It’s an alternate universe version of the Gilded Age, primed for unions, labor laws, and a drastic redistribution of wealth. Pair that unique premise with a tight, fast-moving plot and you’ve got yourself a deeply compelling story.

So if you like your gothic novels bloody, intricate, feminist, sensual, and fighting for basic human rights, this book is for you.

Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson

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Turns out that reading nothing but true crime isn’t exactly conducive to modern dating — and one woman is going to have to learn how to give love a chance when she’s used to suspecting the worst. – Alicia Thompson, press for Love in the Time of Serial Killers

Love in the Time of Serial Killers is Alicia Thompson’s first novel, published in August 2022. As soon as I saw the press description of this book as well as the tag line, ‘Can true love survive her true crime obsession?’, this immediately became a must-read. Bonus: it’s a romance, so I knew there were going to be some steamy bits. Let’s get into it!

Phoebe Walsh has been obsessed with true crime since as long as she can remember. As a PhD candidate, Phoebe even managed to finagle the English Department into letting her analyze true crime as a genre for her dissertation. Said dissertation is taking her longer than she thought to finish it though, especially now that she has to head to Florida to deal with some family issues. After the death of her father months ago, Phoebe and her younger brother now need to clean out their childhood home. The bulk of the task falls to Phoebe and she’s none too pleased. In addition to having to clean out the house and deal with her precocious younger brother, Phoebe’s complicated emotions regarding her father surge to the surface. She hasn’t had a relationship with her father in years. Being left to clean out his house may be more than she can deal with.

Writing her dissertation isn’t proving to be as much relief as she thought it would be. Thinking about serial killers has fully infiltrated her life so much so that when she first meets her new neighbor, Sam Dennings, she immediately thinks he is a serial killer. Phoebe believes that Sam’s actions at night are suspicious, so he must be up to something. As their relationship progresses, Phoebe realizes that Sam may be something much worse than a serial killer – he might be a nice guy who is willing to take care of her precious vulnerable heart.

The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris

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It is a horrifying but undeniable fact that many medical advances are made or greatly improved on the bloody battlefields of war. Medical staff are forced to improvise and learn under terrible conditions, often facing wounds and trauma they’d never seen before. This was never more true than during World War I when the technology of killing far surpassed medical knowledge.

Despite the chaos and bloodshed, doctors and nurses did what they could to ease suffering. The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris looks at the stories of some of the wounded and at one doctor in particular that worked tirelessly to help them. This book is equal measures heartbreaking and inspiring while also showing the cost of war in human suffering.

Harold Gillies already had an interest in plastic surgery before the war. (The word “plastic” doesn’t refer to the material, but to the meaning of the word as a noun – “easily shaped or molded”.) This field of surgery was still in it’s infancy and not readily accepted as legitimate by the medical establishment. However, World War I was especially brutal when it came to facial injuries as troops faced war machines, poison, fire and explosives never seen before. The nature of trench warfare (where soldiers would peek their head over the edge of the trench making them an easy target) and the lack of any effective protective armor as well as scarcity of medicine and delays in reaching aid (many men lay on the battlefield for three or more days before being rescued) led to a staggering number of dead and wounded.

Gillies volunteered as soon as the war broke out. What he saw in France convinced him of the importance of facial reconstruction and he set about creating a medical unit in Britain dedicated to treating these men. He assembled doctors from various disciplines including dentists and surgeons and encouraged innovations such as using skin grafts. By reconstructing destroyed faces he not only improved the soldier’s quality of life, but saved their mental health. “At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits.”

Reading the stories of the soldiers and what they suffered is sobering and shows the incredible cruelty and randomness of war. That so many of them kept a positive attitude and readily endured multiple, painful surgeries can be attributed to Gillies and the atmosphere of the hospital he created. There was entertainment, good food and outdoor excursions for the men and Gillies himself was an inspiration. Gillies never flinched from horrific wounds that would shake even experienced doctors and he never failed to see the person beyond the ruined face. Beloved by patients, he treated not just the physical but understood how saving the appearance helped soldier’s mental state.

The Facemaker is fascinating to read. The writing never drags and, while Fitzharris does not spare medical details, it is not sensationalist. In many ways it is hopeful, that surgery can restore so much that was brutally taken. Highly recommended.

If you would like to learn more about the book and hear from the author and how she strived to write with compassion about the soldiers, I recommend listening to the Noble Blood podcast episode that first aired on July 19, 2022 “Surgery of the First World War with Lindsey Fitzharris”