The Soldier's Wife examines how three generations of a family struggle with the impact of war on their relationships, long after the tour of duty is over. Dan Riley is a major in the British Army. After a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, he is coming home to the wife and young daughters he adores. The outside world sees these reunions as a taste of heaven after months of hell. But are they? Can a man trained to fight adjust again to family and domestic life? And how will the family cope if he can't? To what extent can Alexa, Dan's wife, sacrifice her own needs and fulfillment to support his commitment to a way of life that demands everything, not just of him, but of her and the children as well? What happens when love and a vocation collide head-on? With her trademark intelligence and kind, clear-eyed insight, Joanna Trollope shows us a family striving to balance duty and ambition with intimacy and understanding. "Written with all Trollope's customary skill and panache, this is an absorbing look at the modern military wife who no longer automatically follows the drum."
"A deservedly popular writer, but she isn't a frivolous one…A cracking read,…compassionate, humorous, and topical."
"Nobody understands the snags and frustrations of family life better than Joanna Trollope…exquisite…a serious story that is unraveled sensitively."
"Trollope is on top form, hitting the zeitgeist with this perceptive and compassionate inside story of an army marriage."
"A penetrating study of military families and the potential conflicts between duty and love, The Soldier's Wife bears all of Trollope's trademarks: an affecting, well-constructed story; elegantly restrained prose; explorations of the ramifications of change; and, above all, characters conceived and nurtured with care. Those characters are people we know, people who might be our neighbors, ordinary people rendered with extraordinary perception and grace by an author who never fails to impress and whose journeys into the human condition always satisfy."
