Fall of Poppies (No author)

Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War is a short story collection to which multiple popular authors, such as Jessica Brockmole, Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and others, have contributed stories. It is an engrossing read that I think anyone who enjoys historical fiction and/or love stories will enjoy. The title itself is pretty much self explanatory regarding the common threads connecting all the stories: they are all love stories set against the backdrop of World War I. Many of them are tied to the end of the war and/or Armistice Day.

I enjoyed this short story collection more than the previous one I read (and will review next); however, I was reminded why I'm usually not a short story reader while I was reading Fall of Poppies. Generally short story collections do not keep my interest because of the brevity of the stories and, for me, reading story after story gets tedious after a while. At one point in the middle of this collection, I was thisclose to losing interest, but the next story sucked me in, and I finished the collection.

Considering that Great Britain observed the centennial of World War I in 1914 with special events and TV programming, this is a timely collection since the centennial of the U.S.'s entrance into the war is coming up in 2017. By the time America sent troops, Europe had been enduring the ravages of war for nearly 3 years. It would be another year and a half before arms were laid down on November 11, 1918.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

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