The dust that falls from dreams, by Louis de Bernieres

There have been countless books, both fiction and non-fiction, written about World War I.  This is yet another novel with that defining conflict as its background and theme.  A well-to-do British couple have four young daughters who are growing up in a beautiful area not far from London.  On either side of their home, the neighboring families have sons, three on one side, immigrants from Baltimore, and two on the other side – originally a family of four sons, but two have died in the Boer War.  Their stories are interwoven as the Great War breaks out and changes everything.  The novel is well-written and engaging, but not distinguished enough from many other similar books – some excellent, like Kate Atkinson’s two latest titles – to leave much of an original trace in my memory just weeks after reading it.  Perhaps I’ve been watching too much Downton Abbey as well.  But I did enjoy the story while I was involved in it and liked the origin of its title.  “The dust that falls from dreams,” is how one character describes dancing motes in the morning sunshine.  511 pp.