I was not able to finish this one. It just didn’t hold my interest. It was a slow start and didn’t grab me as I hoped it would. I appreciate the subject matter though because this was a real struggle that men returning from WWI faced and I don’t think people realize that beyond how they were personally affected

I loved reading this novel and discovering something I knew nothing about, the reconstruction of soldiers facial disfigurements during and after the great war,

The tale of the survivor, the one that went to warfare, the one left at the back of. I used to be substantially intrigued by this novel. This is a tale approximately gaining knowledge of from the past so as now not to repeat it, and about locating little wallet of dignity and wish, even in a world torn apart via brutality. Haunting and evocative descriptions of a person navigating grief, loss, remorse, love, and the after consequences of PTSD, for the duration of WWI. It's far brilliantly written, however some thing regarded off. I desired more about the developed process and the workshop in London.

Simply, this is a beautiful exploration of a horrible topic.

It lacks the raw horror of Fitzharris' The Facemaker, which is non-fiction on the same subject, instead focusing on the emotional impact of those involved in helping others, not those who were injured. Its emphasis is on giving dignity to those that feel they've lost it, in whatever form they need. As such, the two work well together to give a rich narrative of the matter and its time.

After having watched Boardwalk Empire, and learning of the existence of these facial prosthetics, I was excited to see such a unique book about them. The aspects of the war are hard to read, but educational none-the-less. Learning about how these masks were made and the story of the soldiers that wore them was very surreal. I don't know if "enjoyed" is the proper word to use for the experience, as this is not an upbeat read, but I was very happy to have received the ARC from NetGalley.

DNF - I will attribute this to my trying to read this book at the wrong time & having nothing to do with the book itself. I might try & read this via audiobook format when/if it is released because the story is truly fascinating.

I wrote my dissertation on disability and literature and included the men who returned injured from WW1 in my historical background. It was the first time there was a significant number of men, of working age, living with a disability. It was an incredibly tough experience, to go from being able-bodied and having society’s respect as a fighting man to becoming disabled, unable to work and in some cases reduced to begging in the streets. I’m glad that we treat and rehabilitate our veterans has changed so much, but I was really interested to go back and see how this generation of men were treated. This was a sensitive and engrossing story based in the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department, colloquially known as The Tin Nose Shop. Around 60,000 men are thought to have returned from the front with facial injuries. When a soldier loses a leg or has an injury to his body there are ways of disguising the disability with clothing - use of a prosthetic for example allows the veteran to ‘pass’ as able-bodied. Facial injuries are such a difficult disability to adjust to, because it can’t really be hidden or disguised in the same way. This story follows a young artist called Sam, who has been engaged to create masks that cover facial deformity. Horrifyingly, the War Office felt that in order to be accepted in society and by their families, these men would need to be disguised. Sam works under an older veteran from the Boer War in a remote Irish castle, which is a step up from almost facing a firing squad for cowardice.

However, although Sam escaped death and physical injury, he did not leave the war unscathed. He is haunted by what he saw in the trenches, particularly his failure to save his friend Ned, something that he dreams about regularly. He would be diagnosed with PTSD these days, so he needs the quiet environment and being able to help someone adjust to their post-war world seems to help with the feelings of survivor’s guilt and inadequacy. The author leaves us in no doubt about how horrifying war can be, particularly this war which is the first mechanised conflict. This first use of automatic weapons is what caused such a terrible death toll and injuries like the ones Sam is trying to cover. He works from a photograph of the patient taken before the war, using his painting skills to create a mask that’s as life-like as possible.

I loved the author’s idea that we cross lines of destiny in our lives and often don’t realise the point at which our lives started to change. However, for these soldiers there’s a clear line of demarcation- their face represents the before and after of a conflict that ripped the world apart. I’ve had a few life changing experiences and can recognise that point of before and after but for other people their life might be changing while they’re stood in the line at the supermarket, completely unaware. It’s this type of observation that makes the book so special. It’s very sensitively written and very respectful of real-life veteran’s experiences. I think this might be a real eye- opener for some readers who might not realise that for some veterans, the war and their battle never really ends. I was so impressed by the level of research apparent in the background to Sam’s story. The author really explores how the soldier’s return affects their loved ones and their communities. It also show’s how the country’s views on war and patriotism were changed forever by this war, a fault line through the psyche of a whole nation.

I never knew The Tin Nose Shop existed. This was a fabulous story and I learned so much from it that I did not want to put it down. Rich in detail.
Many thanks to Legend Press and to NetGalley for sharing a galley with me in exchange for my honest opinion.

How I loved this book! The writing was magnificent ; at times the prose almost read as pure poetry. The subject of the book was something that I knew a bit about. A TV series in the US, Boardwalk Empire, had a character that wore a mask after he became disfigured in WW!.

Sam was such a noble character and I truly felt his heartache. The PTSD that he and his comrades suffered from was only understood by few. His boss, the chaplain named Oliver, truly helped him work through this as the chaplain had after the Boar War in Africa.

I loved the different perspectives in this novel as well. Katie and her anger at men and their compulsion to sign up to serve their country struck a nerve that many can identify with; especially her reasoning that the dead soldiers should be returned to their mothers as opposed to their wives.

Thank you for letting me be a part of Sam's journey to redemption!

Inspired by true events, but staged in Northen Ireland, Sam Burke has lived...only just...his first world war experience but is utterly broken by it. Narrowly avoiding the firing squad for cowardess, he is given the chance to use his artist skills in a new initiative to re-build physically disfigured soldiers.
At "The Tin Nose Shop" he would construct masks from tin, meticulously painting each one to match "before" photos, of his fellow soldiers, who have returned from the front horrifically disfigured. Basic surgery had done what it could for functionality, but there was no plastic surgery back then that made the asthetics any less grusome.

The idea was to give the men dignity, hiding their horrific injuries and making them look "normal" to the eyes of civilians. This in turn would give them confidence to integrate back into life after service. This did work for some......

Sadly some soldiers were unable to reach this place and I found the desire to kill themselves very upsetting but totally understandable given the horrors endured.
The belief that you must sacrifice yourself for your country and that there is no room for cowards, played the ultimate head game with soldiers, who then (if the survived) were expected to return to a world of self preservation....pick up where they left off, be confident, make a life. It must've been incredibly hard finding yourself again sufficiently to be able to make this work.

Sam takes a long time to even function at the most basic level upon his arrival at the castle where the Tin Nose Shop is under trial as a new imitiative. He carries demons and post traumatic stresses, particularly in regard to his best friend Ned who died beside him in the trenches.

Katie is the 3rd wheel in this childhood trio.....she loved both Sam and Ned as a youngster. But Sam and Ned were like chalk and cheese really in nature. Katie had married Ned; so the flip side of Sam's story is that of Katie awaiting the return of her loved one from war. After a sudden farewell, the grief of possibly never seeing a person again. How long can you, or, are you expected to wait...a life in limbo. And what/who will return to you? A physically or mentally broken shell of a person who you loved....still love?

Emotionally charged, I did skip over some long tracts of self reflection and inner thought.

And near the end started to suspect the truth of what happened in the trench between Ned and Sam. I loved this slow clarity, as it went hand in hand with Sam's painfully slow transformation out of the fog or self loathing and doubt.

A story of love...self love. The ability to love one's self again....from the inside, not the outside. To except the fate you were dealt and believe that all things will pass - or at least lessen. And realise life again can be happy.

Thought provoking, compassionate and telling a little know story of the post war experience.

Thanks to NetGalley, Don J Snyder and Legend Press for my free copy.

A beautifully written storybased on truth about men who were hideously disfigured had masked made for them to enable them to go back in society with dignity. I found this a very moving story especially because it was based on truth. War is so pointless yet so many men had to fight and were injured in more ways than one. I loved the character of Sam who is haunted by the death of his friend who was the one really wanting to go to war. A lovely yet poignant novel which will stay with me a long time.

I have read several books on mask making for disfigured men during WWI so I was anxious to read this one. The story involves a young artist, who with his best friend, has gone to fight in the war. After his friend is killed, he attempts suicide. But instead of being shot for being a coward, he is sent to Northern Ireland to design and make the masks for injured soldiers. This book centered more on the relationships between he and the people in his past and those he meets at the hospital. I would had liked more stories on the disfigured men. However, I did enjoy it and will recommend.

I am not unaware of the history behind this story as I have read a few of the nonfiction books that are available. The fact themselves are fascinating . So while the actual events are worth knowing and reading about, The Tin Nose Shop is not the best way to access the tale. The writing in Snyder's novel seemed stilted and forced to this reader. I was never able to get past the flow of the writing to engage fully with any of the characters. So for me, this was a painful read. And not because of the subject matter.

Somehow I expected this book to be non-fiction, or at least based on a true story surrounding the men who had their faces 'covered' by carefully made masks to make them 'presentable' for the world at large after gas and bullets had torn them apart. The story actually is more a love story, a story of the man who went to Northern Ireland, having been reprieved from a firing squad for cowardice, to make and paint these masks.

The result is an interesting story, but we hear little about the men behind the masks or the impact that having their faces recreated had on their lives. There is quite a bit of thought about whether the masks were for the men to hide behind or for society to hide so it did not have to face what it had sent these men into. There was a little about the Easter Rising, but not really any detail as it was added as a peripheral, as indeed was the sinking of the Lusitania and the appearance of the poet Siegfried Sassoon, as if the author was trying to give more credibility to his tale.

Overall an interesting, if slightly superficial read. Thank you to NetGalley and Legend Press for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve read lots of war based books but not many about WW1 so this was quite a new territory for me.

The Tin Nose Shop is based on a true story of a sculptor who volunteered to make masks for those who had facial disfigurements due to the war. Although the story in this is only loosely based on the true story, you still see the magnificence of what that sculptor did and the lives he changed from his work.
Sam, the main character in the book, is truely affected by the war and what he did - what I like about this book is the way it doesn’t penalise what was seen as being cowardly during the war as we can never understand what those soldiers went through. I love the way it explores relationships and what people stood to lose due to war, and the true implications war can have.

A must read for any historical fiction readers, especially as a lot of this whilst fiction is based on a true story.

Sam Burke, a young man from the battlefields of WWI France is sent to an Irish castle to make masks for disfigured soldiers returning from the war. I had not known that much about this practice than seeing a character in Boardwalk Empire wearing a mask like this. Based on a true story, this is a well written book.

A gentle, poetic and uplifting story of masks and war, of loyalty and learning to live again, of love, trauma and healing. How secrets weigh us down and the lengths we go to protect the ones we love.

This book was very enjoyable and i really loved the research and work that the author put into the story. I had known about the types of “masks” that were made for mainly soldiers during and after WWI and have always been fascinated. I like that it was incorporated into a fictional story as I have s=done lots of research myself and it was nice to see it put out there in a different light.

The authors writing style was easy and enjoyable although at times did feel a bit poetic almost. I did take some of the conversations with a grain of salt as I knew it was fictional, but they definitely did feel as though someone had in fact written them instead of conversations that had happened naturally.

I will definitely be recommending this to others especially ones that love historical fiction. I truly think this would be a good book for anyone to enjoy and would most likely be something that many people had not heard of before.

This is such a unique book based upon an extraordinary little-known historical event of masks being made for solders with facial disfigurements sustained during WWI battles. It is emotional, deeply moving and beautifully written. A story is told beyond the words on the page, and I entirely appreciate the well-placed breadcrumbs that are carefully left throughout the book. The story is intriguing from the first page and never lets up! It would be a great read for book club with so many things to discuss!

The Tin Nose Shop, by Don J Snyder, is a book about Sam Burke, an artist who went off to fight in WWI and was saved from the firing squad in order to make masks for those soldiers who were so disfigured in the shelling. But it is more than that--it is a study of the people who go off to war to prove to themselves and to others that they aren't cowards. It's about the ones who survived and were made to do awful things and watched as their friends were blown to bits in front of them, leaving them to quite literally--and gruesomely--pick up the pieces. It's about the women, who were pushed around and made to do things as though they have no agency or meaning other than the way they can serve and prove of use to men. The women who waited and wondered if their men would come home, and then had to live with it when they didn't--and sometimes worse, when they did and were but shells of their former selves.

The only downside really of the book for me was that the characters tended toward a sort of purple prose when they talked, and that they all, at times, said some philosophical, really poetical comments, which seemed not so realistic. Once the book got going, I didn''t want to put it down until I finished, even if the ending came as a bit of a surprise.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.