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The Generation War Saga #1
All I Have to Give
When all is lost, can she find the strength to start again? It is 1916 and Edith Mellor is one of the few female surgeons in Britain. Compelled to use her skills for the war effort, she travels to the Somme, where she is confronted with the horrors at the front. Yet amongst the bloodshed on the battlefield, there is a ray of light in the form of the working class Albert, a corporal from the East End of London. Despite being worlds apart, Edith and Albert can't deny their attraction to each other. But as the brutality of war reveals itself to Albert, he makes a drastic decision that will change both Edith and Albert's lives forever.
In the north of England, strong-minded Ada is left heartbroken when her only remaining son Jimmy heads off to fight in the war. Desperate to rebuild her shattered life, Ada takes up a position in the munition factory. But life deals her a further blow when she discovers that her mentally unstable sister Beryl is pregnant with her husband Paddy's child. Soon, even the love of the gentle Joe, a supervisor at the factory, can't erase Ada's pain. An encounter with Edith's cousin, Lady Eloise, brings Edith into her life. Together, they realise, they may be able to turn their lives around . . .
The next thrilling saga from the kindle bestselling author of Time Passes Time and Proud of You.
- GenresHistorical Fiction
401 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 3, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 11, 2017
It's 1916 and the First World War has cost a lot of people their lives already. Ada's two eldest sons are victims of the war and when her youngest son Jimmy decides to enlist she's devastated. Ada's having a hard time at home and now she's left alone with her violent husband Paddy. Paddy takes what he wants when he wants it and regularly rapes his wife. He isn't faithful and has betrayed Ada in the most awful way, her sister is pregnant with Paddy's child. Ada can't have more children and she's about to lose the only son she has left. There's one person who seems to truly care about her, Joe. Will Ada have a chance at a less unhappy future because of him?
Edith is a surgeon. She's one of the few women in this profession. She wants to help the war victims, which is why she's traveling to France to work at the front. She constantly meets soldiers, but one of them stands out. She feels something for Albert, but when tragedy strikes something happens within him that makes him act impulsively and results in unrepairable damage. This changes the course of Edith's life forever. When she comes home from France she's no longer the same woman. That's when she's being introduced to Ada. They come from different backgrounds, but have a lot in common and decide they will use their pain and turn it into something good. They're going to help others and will do this together.
All I Have to Give is a beautiful story about family, friendship, love, betrayal, loss and grief. I love the raw, open way Mary Wood describes the lives of her main characters. She doesn't spare them and her stories have shocking elements that make them incredibly realistic. I was captivated by both Edith and Ada. They're strong, capable women who know what it's like to suffer and who realize there are situations they can't prevent from happening. They are still trying to make the best of their lives after all the tragedies they've experienced. I admired their courage and resilience and their wonderful warm bond warmed my heart. It was a joy to read about the friendship between these amazing main characters. I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough to find out what would happen to them and Mary Wood managed to keep me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.
All I Have to Give is set in a time of great unrest. The First World War isn't over yet and many soldiers have fallen already. My heart ached for the main characters, who are going through so much pain because of it. There's a lot of action and the story is fast-paced and even though it's heavy, it doesn't become too much because Mary Wood balances the bad with the good. Her main characters are survivors of terrible events, but they also know love. They are being loved and know what it's like to love in return. They also know nothing is black and white and feelings are never straightforward. I love how Mary Wood writes about their doubts, dreams and flaws. It makes them human and incredibly interesting. All I Have to Give is a terrific versatile story that moved me to tears.
Edith is a surgeon. She's one of the few women in this profession. She wants to help the war victims, which is why she's traveling to France to work at the front. She constantly meets soldiers, but one of them stands out. She feels something for Albert, but when tragedy strikes something happens within him that makes him act impulsively and results in unrepairable damage. This changes the course of Edith's life forever. When she comes home from France she's no longer the same woman. That's when she's being introduced to Ada. They come from different backgrounds, but have a lot in common and decide they will use their pain and turn it into something good. They're going to help others and will do this together.
All I Have to Give is a beautiful story about family, friendship, love, betrayal, loss and grief. I love the raw, open way Mary Wood describes the lives of her main characters. She doesn't spare them and her stories have shocking elements that make them incredibly realistic. I was captivated by both Edith and Ada. They're strong, capable women who know what it's like to suffer and who realize there are situations they can't prevent from happening. They are still trying to make the best of their lives after all the tragedies they've experienced. I admired their courage and resilience and their wonderful warm bond warmed my heart. It was a joy to read about the friendship between these amazing main characters. I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough to find out what would happen to them and Mary Wood managed to keep me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.
All I Have to Give is set in a time of great unrest. The First World War isn't over yet and many soldiers have fallen already. My heart ached for the main characters, who are going through so much pain because of it. There's a lot of action and the story is fast-paced and even though it's heavy, it doesn't become too much because Mary Wood balances the bad with the good. Her main characters are survivors of terrible events, but they also know love. They are being loved and know what it's like to love in return. They also know nothing is black and white and feelings are never straightforward. I love how Mary Wood writes about their doubts, dreams and flaws. It makes them human and incredibly interesting. All I Have to Give is a terrific versatile story that moved me to tears.
December 13, 2015
such a heartbreaking story i loved it and didnt want it to end hope to read more of the tales of ada and edith cannot wait for a follow up
January 2, 2016
Very confusing. Bounced from one character to the next without fully developing them. Too many different under stories mixed together. Going to Oxfam!
Read
December 23, 2015It was an ok read. I had been looking forward to reading it but it just seemed to drag me down the more I got into it. Nothing good seemed to happen. It was just one disaster after another for everyone in the story. And there was way too much 'forced sex' shall we call it with some women forgiving instantly. I sort of lost interest after these incidents and just read it to see how it ended. But that's just my opinion. I'm sure people enjoyed it.
December 23, 2019
Not having read this author before I was pleasantly surprised. A real page turner and I absolutely loved this war story. It saddened me what war did to everyone touched by it but enthralled me with the love that came from war and divided classes became one. A very good read
April 2, 2016
I read the summary of this book and I was pretty excited to read it. After all, it was about a woman surgeon in the early part of the 20th century when women surgeons were quite rare, how she coped with conditions during the first World War and how different women's lives intersected. Yep, right up my alley. I am a nurse and I have always been fascinated by the careers of health professionals when not as much was known about healthcare as now and the equipment etc they had to work with was more primitive.
Unfortunately, this was a very "busy" book, lots of characters being introduced in a short space of time, and consequently, we didn't get to know them all that well. For some reason, the book seemed to be more focussed on the love lives of the women in the book than anything else. Even when the main character had JUST arrived on the war front to set up her field hospital, she caught the eye of one of the soldiers and they had a Mills & Boonesque connection. I mean, really? I get that in times of war, romantic connections were made more quickly because of the stress of the situation and that emotions of all sorts were heightened, but I would have thought that the focus should have been on her work.
I got really confused with the plot, it was jumping around quite a bit and I ended up skim reading.
A real shame, this book had promise and I am sure that the author would have done a tonne of research but it just didn't come through.
Unfortunately, this was a very "busy" book, lots of characters being introduced in a short space of time, and consequently, we didn't get to know them all that well. For some reason, the book seemed to be more focussed on the love lives of the women in the book than anything else. Even when the main character had JUST arrived on the war front to set up her field hospital, she caught the eye of one of the soldiers and they had a Mills & Boonesque connection. I mean, really? I get that in times of war, romantic connections were made more quickly because of the stress of the situation and that emotions of all sorts were heightened, but I would have thought that the focus should have been on her work.
I got really confused with the plot, it was jumping around quite a bit and I ended up skim reading.
A real shame, this book had promise and I am sure that the author would have done a tonne of research but it just didn't come through.
July 19, 2019
Succumbed at page 204.
I think looking at the reviews this book is either your cup of tea or it's not. I'm afraid it is not mine. I picked it up from the mobile library van as it says on the back it's about Edith, "one of the few female surgeons in Britain. Compelled to use her skills for the war effort, she travels to the Somme, where she is confronted with the horrors at the front." I feel incredibly misled by the publisher's blurb. The author just needed to manoeuvre her character to be on the western front during WW1, and as a woman it had to be something medical. From the lack of medical information given in the first 204 pages, she could equally have been a VAD, whom, apparently, the nurses looked down upon. For me, there are too many characters. Jay's backstory is too complicated and I simply cannot bear being told what is going to happen with a headline spoiler at the start of each chapter. I'm a bit fed up really as I was looking forward to this, but I'm more than half way so I've given it a fair go.
I think looking at the reviews this book is either your cup of tea or it's not. I'm afraid it is not mine. I picked it up from the mobile library van as it says on the back it's about Edith, "one of the few female surgeons in Britain. Compelled to use her skills for the war effort, she travels to the Somme, where she is confronted with the horrors at the front." I feel incredibly misled by the publisher's blurb. The author just needed to manoeuvre her character to be on the western front during WW1, and as a woman it had to be something medical. From the lack of medical information given in the first 204 pages, she could equally have been a VAD, whom, apparently, the nurses looked down upon. For me, there are too many characters. Jay's backstory is too complicated and I simply cannot bear being told what is going to happen with a headline spoiler at the start of each chapter. I'm a bit fed up really as I was looking forward to this, but I'm more than half way so I've given it a fair go.
November 12, 2018
The story is set during the World War I period and that was enough to get me to pick up and turn the pages of this book. Initially, the story grows on you - a mother mourning the loss of her two sons to the German offensive and now scared she'll lose her third too, a young woman deliberating her chances of becoming a nurse in the war, a young doctor whose life change in the war frontlines and more. Their stories all began on a promising note but midway they fall into a pattern - happiness, sadness, misery and death. Death is littered through the pages of this book, what else would you expect in a wartime story? But the women! Oh! Just when you think they are strong capable women, dealing with wartime and the after effects of it, the author introduces a rape, most of the women in the story are somehow squished under the feet of patriarchy and male ego. Reading this book in a fairly woke century and year, the story does feel jarring. A lot of loose ends and some abrupt endings.
August 1, 2016
Another book best left in the charity shop. Shallow and melodramatic- people fall in love within 5 seconds, and rapes or murders occur with startling regularity. The author says at the end that through a visit to the Somme she 'really felt that I knew what it had felt like to fight and survive'. I am afraid that the lack of depth in the book shows the inadequacy of this assertion. I am surprised it was ever published.
June 1, 2017
I have read other books by Mary Wood but I really wasn't sure about this one. The stories of the women were good but the majority of the male characters were portrayed as unable to control their urges despite being good men underneath and the many rapes really put me off. I am going to read the follow up book just to find out how Edith fares in her quest to be reunited with her children.
December 7, 2020
The basic storyline was good, and for that alone I would have given it 4 stars; but, the women are too much portrayed as victims of their emotions, and the men as slaves to their urges, and for this reason I removed a star. I have nothing against a good old 'bodice-ripper', but the messages were too mixed in this book, and too many diverging storylines
March 27, 2016
Rather a strange book really. It was set in a certain period but included storylines that were more suited to a period 70 years later. Also, it was rather an abrupt ending. Has the author written a sequel?
May 5, 2016
Loved this book but ending could be better and it could follow on, I'd like to know if Edith got the twins back etc
September 3, 2017
The book follows the life of two women, Edith Mellor a physician and Ada a woman who has lost two sons to WWI. Edith has two older brothers but is an accomplished surgeon. Both of her brothers have gone to war and she is accepted as well and follows them to France.
Ada is married to Paddy and has just heard their youngest son has signed up. Jimmy is only 16 but has lied about his age. Ada and Paddy are devastated because they believe he may lose his life as well. Paddy is unable to keep a job and Ada often has to depend on her sister, Beryl for extra funds to keep food on the table. Paddy has refused to let Ada get a job because he believes a woman's place is in the home but she begins work in a munitions plant.
In France, Edith is attracted to a young corporal, Albert but realizes they have had very different upbringings. Albert soon has Jimmy under his command but then disaster strikes and Edith plays a role in when Jimmy comes under her care. Gives a better idea of how different classes of people managed during the war and how strong the families left had to be when they lost loved ones in the war.
Ada is married to Paddy and has just heard their youngest son has signed up. Jimmy is only 16 but has lied about his age. Ada and Paddy are devastated because they believe he may lose his life as well. Paddy is unable to keep a job and Ada often has to depend on her sister, Beryl for extra funds to keep food on the table. Paddy has refused to let Ada get a job because he believes a woman's place is in the home but she begins work in a munitions plant.
In France, Edith is attracted to a young corporal, Albert but realizes they have had very different upbringings. Albert soon has Jimmy under his command but then disaster strikes and Edith plays a role in when Jimmy comes under her care. Gives a better idea of how different classes of people managed during the war and how strong the families left had to be when they lost loved ones in the war.
June 15, 2024
Occasionally, one reads a book which leaves a lasting memory and this is one of those.
Brilliantly written, it's a story which tells of the horrific and terrifying conditions endured by the soldiers in the first world war and the worry and heartbreak of the lives of their families at home.
The gruesome and explicit descriptions of life in the trenches seemed very real and the tale of death and destruction were terrifyingly good. Mary Wood writes in such a way that sucks you in and the cold, sickening decision to put so called cowards before a firing squad, brought shivers to my spine.
Yes, there were remarkable coincidences which seemed too good to be true but everything had to be linked up in some way. I did really want the 'twin' part of the story to be resolved but unfortunately it didn't happen, a little disappointing at the end.
I noted just one error which should have been picked up before publication - 'Mabel' suddenly turned into 'Mildred' on page 92!
Brilliantly written, it's a story which tells of the horrific and terrifying conditions endured by the soldiers in the first world war and the worry and heartbreak of the lives of their families at home.
The gruesome and explicit descriptions of life in the trenches seemed very real and the tale of death and destruction were terrifyingly good. Mary Wood writes in such a way that sucks you in and the cold, sickening decision to put so called cowards before a firing squad, brought shivers to my spine.
Yes, there were remarkable coincidences which seemed too good to be true but everything had to be linked up in some way. I did really want the 'twin' part of the story to be resolved but unfortunately it didn't happen, a little disappointing at the end.
I noted just one error which should have been picked up before publication - 'Mabel' suddenly turned into 'Mildred' on page 92!
April 3, 2018
A subject matter I enjoy reading about- women's war work- and I really enjoyed this book.
Edith is unusual for the time (WW1) not just a female doctor, but a female surgeon, working at the front in France. Her cousin Eloise is completely the opposite, spoiled, lazy, unwilling to take up any sort of war work. Ada is a northern working class mother with a feckless drunken husband and sons away fighting. She becomes a munitions worker.
3 woman with nothing in common at first, but circumstances bring about a lot of changes in their lives, and by the end of the book they're all working together.
Yes there are some faintly ludicrious parts, too much undying love at first sight, and more than one unpleasant rape, but the scene is well set and the lives of the characters interesting enough to make me put in an order for the sequel.
Edith is unusual for the time (WW1) not just a female doctor, but a female surgeon, working at the front in France. Her cousin Eloise is completely the opposite, spoiled, lazy, unwilling to take up any sort of war work. Ada is a northern working class mother with a feckless drunken husband and sons away fighting. She becomes a munitions worker.
3 woman with nothing in common at first, but circumstances bring about a lot of changes in their lives, and by the end of the book they're all working together.
Yes there are some faintly ludicrious parts, too much undying love at first sight, and more than one unpleasant rape, but the scene is well set and the lives of the characters interesting enough to make me put in an order for the sequel.
May 30, 2022
Nagyon tetszett, hogy nagyon sok szálon indult a történet. Az elején kicsit el voltam veszve, de ahogy a sztorik egyre közelebb és közelebb kerültek egymáshoz, minden kezdett tisztulni. Utáltam a legtöbb férfit a műben, főleg Paddy-t, aki undorítóan bánt Ada-val. Szegény nő mindenét elvesztette (gyerekek, ház, férj, testvére mentális betegsége miatt labilissá vált). Szerencsére megtalálta Lady Eloise-t és Edithet, akik segítettek az útján.
Tetszettek a szerelmi szálak, főleg Jay és Andrina-é (míg meg nem halt), és nagyon váratlanok voltak a fordulatok.
Szörnyű belegondolni min mentek keresztül az emberek a fronton és a hátországban.
Tetszettek a szerelmi szálak, főleg Jay és Andrina-é (míg meg nem halt), és nagyon váratlanok voltak a fordulatok.
Szörnyű belegondolni min mentek keresztül az emberek a fronton és a hátországban.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2017
I have mixed opinions about Mary Woods books. The stories are generally very good, but I find the 'chapter titles' a little condescending and spoiler alert-y. They remind me of children's books. I don't always find the general writing of the story very good, and some of it is a little cliche-d. However, the stories compel me enough to want to read the next one just to see what happens, so I guess that's the sign of a good book.
April 27, 2024
i dont know how to rate this, is it a penny dreadful, gothic novel, unhinged ramblings or the gruesome story of war, womanhood and the atrocities of ww1??? but i really want to know where was the editor? the basics of a very interesting story and important themes but this is like an overstuffed buffet where you kind of like the taste of but it is too much and confused and end up with a bellyache, not least of the plight of ada and edith.
October 12, 2017
dont usually enjoy books abt th war yrs but did enjoy this.it was thought provoking and made u realise the horrors of war.I didnt like the bits about Paddys abusive treatment of his wife and the fact that she still loved him in spite of everything.am lookn fwd to the next book now to see if the twins are reunited with their mother.
May 15, 2017
Made me cry - a good book!
June 6, 2017
A lot happened in such a short book. I enjoyed it but I don't think I'll read the sequel
October 29, 2018
Sisters
I've really enjoyed this fantastic book. Taking us to the fires and how every bothered Chris and John had picked a fabulous book.x x x x x x
I've really enjoyed this fantastic book. Taking us to the fires and how every bothered Chris and John had picked a fabulous book.x x x x x x
February 2, 2019
Short chapters, lots of narrative voices, a hurried and undeveloped ending, and just a lot left unexplained. Story had promise but did not deliver, unfortunately.
March 30, 2021
Enjoyed this book, there is a lot going on but had to keep reading. I hope there is a sequel to find out what happens to the characters
August 18, 2024
Fantastic
I love this author, well done Mary. Another fantastic read. Ada is one strong lady can't wait to read the next one.
I love this author, well done Mary. Another fantastic read. Ada is one strong lady can't wait to read the next one.
September 14, 2024
A great read, cannot wait to read the next book
February 1, 2023
I enjoyed this. Lots of jumping about between characters but somehow it all flowed. There is definitely other stories within this book!
April 7, 2016
Although this book is about searching for love, this is not a cosy, romantic saga. 'All I Have to Give' is dramatic and gritty - just the way I like my stories. Mary Wood does not shy away from the horrific realities of war and poverty in the WWI period. The book reveals fascinating details of the social and military mores of the time, but I never felt that I was being 'lectured' about history as these are skilfully woven into an action-packed, complex narrative. Mary Wood is responsible for the bags currently bulging under my eyes, as I stayed up later than was sensible on a few occasions simply because there was never a good moment to put this book down. This is a thought-provoking book which deals with powerful themes. I would love to spend more time with Mary Wood's determined, compassionate and very 'human' female protagonists - to hang on tight and see where their rollercoaster lives will take us next.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews