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Good Hope Road
Mandanna is a gifted and evocative writer who can tell a story stirringly well. - The Hindu At the outset of the Great War, James Stonebridge, a patrician New England Yankee and Obadaiah Nelson, a gumbo ya-ya Louisiana native, volunteer with the French Foreign Legion in Paris. They are among the handful of Americans who did so at the time, young men filled with idealism and lured by romantic notions of adventure. Despite their different backgrounds, the two form a deep and unexpected friendship that helps them endure the brutal reality of the trenches, a bond that is tested to breaking point by the horrors of the war. Fourteen years after the war has ended, Major James Stonebridge is a haunted recluse. A black mirror, a souvenir from France, hangs on the wall of his Vermont farmhouse, his pale, leached reflection in it hinting at all that he has suffered. The impact of this unspoken burden is felt most of all by his son, Jim. It is only when privileged, spirited Madeleine enters their lives and encourages the Major to join the World War I veterans agitating for their unpaid bonuses in Washington that Jim finally begins to understand the man his father once was, and all that the war took from him. Meanwhile the 1930s are drawing to a close and another war looms. From pre-war Paris to the trenches of Europe and the apple orchards of Vermont, Good Hope Road is a powerful and mesmerizing story of the legacy of war, the search for redemption and the strength of the human spirit.