We've Come to Take You Home

In the years surrounding the Great War, Jess Brown and her family face tremendous hardship and loss, with Jess losing her father to war and her baby brother to starvation and illness. In the present, Sam Foster is a girl who has been able to see things others can’t since she was a baby. Lately she’s been having waking nightmares about blood and death and war. With her father hospitalized with a life threatening brain bleed, the visions become worse. What do to girls one hundred years apart have to do with each other? I was blown away by this book, it’s so good, I read it in one go. Comparisons to Susanna Kearsley and Barbara Erskine will be inevitable. Highly recommended

A well told tale of hardship and longing in the times of elemental despair. Sam, a fifteen year old girl living her life with her battling parents, is sobered when her father is in a car accident after swerving to avoid a girl mindlessly stepping into traffic. In the midst of all this trauma, she begins to slip between time and begins to experience life in 1917 through the eyes of Jess, who is her age who is living in the thick devastation of war. A traumatic love story ensues that transcends time and defines what guardian angels can do to protect those they love and innocent life. I highly recommend this book because of the beautiful story that winds into a heart rendering ending.

We’ve come to take you Home explores two characters’ lives: Sam’s, a modern day teenager with a pilot for a father; and Jess, a young girl living through the First World War.

Sam’s parents are fighting because her father is away so much. Their fighting seems to trigger strange shifts in reality for Sam. One minute she is riding a fairground ride or running down the road after her father’s car and the next she is somewhere else entirely seeing airships, bombs, bodies, her own fingers lacing up a bodice. It becomes clear quite quickly that she is slipping into Jess’s life. Why that might be takes a novel to unfold.

Jess lives in the country and at first the Great War barely touches her. Her father is too old for the initial draft and for some time Jess’s family life continues unbroken. Then her father is called up and the real hardship of life in an England of food shortages begins to take its toll forcing Jess’s mother to send her up to London. She goes into service in the house her mother worked in as a young woman. Wartime London brings hard labour, love and heartache. Will Jess ever feel she has a family again?

It’s difficult to describe this novel without giving away plot, but you can rest assured there is more to uncover. I’m certain that this is a book that will have wide appeal. The centrality of the nuclear family and the importance of loving parents will be a great draw for many readers. While I admire the writing and plotting of the novel, I found myself more interested in Jess’s story than Sam’s and unfortunately, for me, the whole book came together too neatly leaving me with questions, threads of uncertainty that seemed not to fit in the knot of the ending.

Ultimately, We’ve come to take you Home is a family love story and ghost story combined, full of intrigue and written with care. Though it doesn’t quite work for me, it may well work for you. If you like the idea, We’ve come to take you Home won’t disappoint.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.
We’ve Come To Take You Home is written from the view point of two young women in different timelines. Sam is a modern day girl whose life seems to be in intrinsically linked to that of Jessica, whose father is sent to fight in the first world war.
I loved the concept of this novel and was fascinated by the way comparisons were drawn between the two girls, whose stories took place so many years apart.
I did, however find myself far more interested in the life of Jess than that of Sam, which is odd when you would naturally expect to relate more to a character in the modern day. I found myself almost wanting to skip to Jess’ parts!
Having said that, I would certainly recommend this novel. It is a powerful & emotive story & is very neatly ended.

Emotionally charged and instantly relatable, this story has you gripped from the start. While I didn't think the premise was workable in the beginning the way is it inwoven with the plot and character development is very clever. Enjoyed this read and would read more from this author.

I didnt know what to expect with this book.... but from the beginning it captivated me and I wanted to know more. I would highly recommend this book

I read this novel quite quickly-by that, I mean it took me under three hours. I found that this was a novel suited for a Sunday morning. It made me feel such intense appreciation for what we have today, in comparison to the uncertainty that wars bring with it. As I wrote that last sentence I came upon the realisation that it's actually a lot like today's wars.

Anyway, I will recommend this novel: it follows the life of Sam a modern day teenager, who has, what we begin to discover, a gift. She, like most children, had imaginary friends. And as she gets older, she begins to see their lives, their journeys, whilst she likes through her own.

The story flows smoothly from both their lives and Jess, Sam's imaginary friend, is a remarkable well developed character. I sympathised with Jess during her experience of love, her short period of motherhood and her willingness to let go. The writer wrote in such a sophisticated prose that I understood what was happening, this was a novel style I have come across before. In spite of this, This novel was better, if not unique, it incorporated the story and the unwinding events so subtly that one wouldn't even begin to think they were linked.

The outcome of Jess' life was bitterly akin to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. They become United later, and I suppose it becomes bittersweet. I loved this.

I received this novel through NetGalley and I thank the author, publisher or editor for the opportunity.

Two girls, Jess and Sam from different times - First World War and present day. Their lives are colliding as Sam keeps blacking out to find herself being Jess. This is a beautifully written book, part timeslip, part ghost story. Great descriptions of life as a maid of all work i.e. a general dogsbody who has to do everything, hardly any time off and certainly not much sleep. So much drudgery and for little reward plus don't even look at the family let alone speak! I loved reading this book and didn't want it to end - enchanting. Probably the best book I've read this year.

Interesting and original idea linking 2 quite different girls through the ether of time,it shouldn't really work but some how it does.I like authors who think outside the box and this one certainly does.No spoilers from me, but its an interesting concept and well worth a read.

I enjoyed the different parts of the story and the characters were well portrayed but at no stage did I understand the relationships between the various parts. It didn't spoil the story for me but left a lot of unanswered questions

This isn't the type of book I would usually pick up, history isn't my strong point but this was written in a way that you could relate to the characters and feel like you would do the same thing in their situations. I felt the author did well to convey the conditions the characters were living in and the way it would of been to live back then and you were able to appreciate the hard decisions people have had to make, especially about life or death. This was a lovely unexpected surprise of a read and I look forward to reading more from this author soon.