Please welcome our own Heather Webb—author of Becoming Josephine and Rodin’s Lover—here today with exciting news of an anthology released just a few days ago: Fall Of Poppies: Stories Of Love and The Great War. In this book, Heather and eight other top voices in historical fiction deliver an “unforgettable collection of short stories set in the aftermath of World War I.”
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month…
November 11, 1918. After four long, dark years of fighting, the Great War ends at last, and the world is forever changed. For soldiers, loved ones, and survivors the years ahead stretch with new promise, even as their hearts are marked by all those who have been lost.
As families come back together, lovers reunite, and strangers take solace in each other, everyone has a story to tell.
Fall of Poppies is already a bestseller on Amazon in Historical Fiction Anthologies, with these exciting reviews:
“An atmospheric homage to one of history’s most emotionally devastating episodes.” –Booklist
“Sure to resonate with readers…looking for historical fiction with elements of intrigue and romance.” –Library Journal
What’s the premise of Fall of Poppies?
HW: The premise is a series of stories set around the first Armistice Day—11/11/ 1918 at 11 a.m.—and the emotions and events that lead up to it. WWI had ended, but life had to go on. In this collection, each author explores a different angle of how people endured, recreated themselves, and the hope that moved them forward.
What would you like people to know about the story itself?
HW: I’ll speak to my particular story called “Hour of the Bells.” As a cultural geographer and former military brat, I find myself perpetually fascinated by the idea of “the outsider” within a culture not their own, what it means to belong, and how our values and ideals can shift as we assimilate. Beatrix is a German-born woman who married a Frenchman, and their only son is ridiculed for being a dirty “boche,” spurring him to join the war efforts. When her son perishes, she can’t forgive herself for who she is and how she has failed him—and sets out on a quest to prove her love in an outward, explosive way. I couldn’t think of a more powerful motivation than a mother’s love and grief and wanted to go down that road, see how it felt.