Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  On Wings of Song

AUTHOR:  Anne Barwell

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  136 pages

RELEASE DATE:  March 1, 2020

BLURB:

A chance meeting they never forgot.

Six years after meeting British soldier Aiden Foster during the Christmas Truce of 1914, Jochen Weber still finds himself thinking about Aiden, their shared conversation about literature, and Aiden’s beautiful singing voice. A visit to London gives Jochen the opportunity to search for Aiden, but he’s shocked at what he finds.

The uniform button Jochen gave him is the only thing Aiden has left of the past he’s lost. The war and its aftermath ripped everything away from him, including his family and his music. When Jochen reappears in his life, Aiden enjoys their growing friendship but knows he has nothing to offer. Not anymore.

Author’s note: This story was originally published in 2014 by another publisher. This edition has some added content, and uses UK spelling to reflect its setting.

REVIEW:

Aiden and Jochen meet during the famous Christmas truce of 1914 during World War I.  Aiden is from London and he works at a theater.  His passion is music.  Jochen is from Berlin and his passion is literature.  He has a particular fondness for Dickens 🙂  They talk about literature – Dicks and Tennyson in particular.  Then Aiden sings for everyone towards the end of the night before they move back to their trench positions.  Before they part, however, they exchange tiny mementos.

Both survive the war as luck would have it.  A couple of years after the end of the war, Jochen finds himself in London.  He has remembered every detail of his conversation with Aiden that Christmas long ago.  He is determined to find Aiden – if he’s still alive.  When he turns up at the theater that Aiden mentioned, he’s turned away.  But he decides to try again and leaves a letter for Aiden before he leaves.  But Aiden has lost so much.  He survived physically, but he’s got a lot of baggage he’s still carrying.  Jochen did not escape unscathed either.

At the last minute, Aiden decides to accept Jochen’s offer to meet. While things don’t go perfectly, they agree to an outing together to address Jochen’s business in London.  Jochen deals with a lot of prejudice due to his German accent, but he does find some generous people.  Both Aiden and Jochen are nervous about what is happening between them.  They are tentative in their exploration of something beyond friendship – particularly as they are both dealing with after affects of the war.  Luckily there are others who encourage them to pursue what makes them happy.

I studied history at university so I am a sucker for a good historical.  And this is a lovely little gem of a story.  The author’s ability to evoke both time and place drew me right into the story.  The horrors of war are vivid, but not overwhelming in this story.  The aftermath is the biggest part of the story and how people deal with the traumas and injuries of war.  The experiences that lead to both men having pronounced “shell shock” or PTSD are genuinely and sympathetically portrayed.  I really liked the secondary characters of this story – Jack at the theater, Emily at the tea shop and Mrs. Hamilton, Aiden’s landlady and second mother, in particular.  While this story is low on heat, it is high in emotion.  Jochen and Aiden are two men who have dealt with a lot, but come to rely on each other to make it through the long-term ramifications of their experiences.  I admired the courage of both to try to move forward with their lives after the shattering traumas of war, death, injury and loss.  Recommended particularly for fans of historical romance.

RATING: 

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