The bestselling author Adele Parks will be talking about her 15th novel: If You Go Away (to be published in June 2015). Set in 1914, it looks at a generation torn by impossible choices.
Howard Henderson, a brilliant young playwright, cannot comprehend his fellow man’s eagerness to fight a faceless enemy. He has seen the worst of humanity at the front; he wants no part of it. But if he doesn’t go to fight he will be imprisoned, and perhaps shot as a conscientious objector. When war breaks out on Vivian Foster’s wedding day, her distant, traditionalist husband immediately joins up and she is left alone to create a life on a Derbyshire farm. If she follows her heart, she will be disgraced and ostracised. If she follows convention, she will be lonely and isolated. Amidst the inhumanity of war, can beauty be found? Or does Howard and Vivian’s friendship simply present a set of further, more unbearable alternatives?