The care and management of lies, by Jacqueline Winspear

A few books into her popular “Maisie Dobbs” series, Winspear paused in 2014, the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, to write this non-mystery novel centering on the “home front” and women’s place in that conflict.  It is a quietly effective and ultimately tragic book.  Kezia and her best friend Dorothea – known at home as “Dorrit,” and who will become “Thea” after school – meet as scholarship students at a prestigious girls’ school in London.  They come from the same rural area, but their close bond is formed primarily because of their shared humble beginnings (a country vicar’s daughter and a local farmer’s).  This bond is only reinforced when Kezia marries Thea’s older brother, Tom, who manages the family farm after the early deaths of both parents.  As the book opens, Thea has become deeply involved in women’s suffrage, while Kezia seems content to move into a more traditional role as a wife.  Somewhat miffed, Thea gives her friend The Woman’s Book, a compendium of household hints, cookery, and advice, as a wedding gift, a not-too-subtle dig at the world Kezia will soon enter, subservient to a husband and caught in society’s expectations.  However, soon after Kezia and Tom marry, war breaks out and Tom joins up, leaving the inexperienced Kezia to manage not only the household, but the entire farm, its livestock, and those who work on the land.  Thea, having narrowly escaped being caught and arrested for her suffrage and pacifism work (and those arrested were often abused and force-fed), sees driving an ambulance as a way to avoid apprehension.  Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.  Chapters alternate between Kezia’s struggles to keep the farm going in the face of shortages and losing help as men join up, Tom’s service in the trenches of France, and Thea’s work in the danger zone.  What keeps Tom, and soon his fellow soldiers in the trenches, going are Kezia’s letters to Tom describing (entirely fictional) delicious and inventive dinners she is preparing for him each day.  Sounds a bit treacly, but it is quite moving.  319 pp.