Winter Flowers

Book excerpt: It's October 1918 and the war is drawing to a close. Toussaint Caillet returns home to his wife, Jeanne, and the young daughter he hasn't seen growing up. He is not coming back from the front line but from the department for facial injuries at Val-de-Grâce military hospital, where he has spent the last two years. For Jeanne, who has struggled to endure his absence and the hardships of wartime, her husband's return marks the beginning of a new battle. With the promise of peace now in sight, the family must try to stitch together a new life from the tatters of what they had before.