‘The year is now 1918 . . . In the climate of exhaustion and hysteria amid which the war is wearing to its close, pressures to fall into line become fierce and take ugly forms. At the forefront of her story, Barker places figures especially menaced by this: pacifists, conscientious objectors and homosexuals . . . a sequel every bit as unwaveringly intense and intelligent as its predecessor’ Peter Kemp, Sunday Times