by Anita Shreve
First published 2013
Stella Bain wakes up in a London garden during World War I, her mind shattered by shell shock and her memories erased. She remembers nothing before four months ago, when someone found her wounded on a French battlefield. Surgeon August Bridge and his wife take her into their home, initially as an act of charity. Bridge soon becomes fascinated by Stella's condition and begins studying her case. Stella knows she worked as a nurse's aide near the front lines, but everything else remains blank. As she struggles to piece together her identity, the story moves between London and America. Bridge's clinical interest in her amnesia grows deeper, complicating their relationship. Stella must confront the fragments of her lost life while navigating the aftermath of a war that has left countless people broken. Shreve explores how memory shapes identity and examines the different forms love can take when the past disappears.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adult-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: amnesia, lost-identity
Setting: London, France
Period: World War I
272 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown and Company
Content warnings: war