This was a Book Discussion group book. I wouldn't normally read a WWI story. I found the character portrayal a bit thin. Especially interaction with women. The war and fighting and anger and frustration were better expressed. The unraveling mystery of what happened to Stephen's grandfather certainly keeps you reading. ( )

A good Australian take on World War I – covering a lot of what you read about in the history books, and a lot you don’t, told from the contemporary perspective of Patrick trying to find out what happened to his grandfather during the latter years of the war.

One of the most affecting pieces of the story for me was the way in which the war was depicted as impacting upon relationships, and the difficulty young couples, perhaps hastily married and unable to spend much time together pre-deployment, had in communicating in an environment that seemed to place so much value on protecting each other from any negative thoughts or experiences. ( )

Peter Yeldham is an Australian screenwriter and author. Some time ago, I bought Barbed Wire and Roses, added it to my TBR pile and promptly forgot about it. Recently, I saw he has a new book out (Glory Girls) and thought I should read his work before I go and buy another of his books.
I feel a bit bad now that I’ve had this sitting on my shelves for so long. It’s a great book and if I was looking for similarities, I say he’s like Bryce Courtenay in telling a good Aussie story (but his books are not as thick as Courtenay’s- good for bedtime reading)!
Barbed Wire and Roses is not a romantic novel, as you might think from the title (it does have romance, but that’s certainly not the focus). It tells the story of Stephen Conway, who eagerly volunteered to join the army in 1914, fought in Gallipoli and France and then died at the end of the war. Or so that’s what his family thinks. Patrick, his grandson, goes to France to retrace his grandfather’s footsteps on the way to a meeting with the BBC in London but there’s a lot more to this than first thought. Enter diaries, misplaced letters, a gold digging granddaughter and a romance- you’ll find Stephen’s plight a lot more than first thought.
This book enters into topics that are generally not told in war stories (or skimmed over)- I found some of the treatments and outcomes truly awful. Stephen is portrayed well as a character, but Joanna (Patrick’s wife) is a hastily sketched caricature and it’s hard to care what she thinks or what happens to her. Patrick’s romance wasn’t really necessary to the story, but I can understand why it was there to draw parallels.
I’m eagerly awaiting Glory Girls on my bookshop shelves now! ( )

Peter Yeldham is a great story teller. This is the first book of his that I have read and it was a book that I could not put down. It is hard say too much about the story without revealing elements of the plots that are best left for the reader to dscover. A brief introduction would be this. It is the story of Stephen Conway who rushes to join up in the belief that he shoud be willing to fight for King and country. Four years later, the only survivor of his platoon, he mysteriously disapperas.
Eighty years later Stephen's fate is still a mystery to his grandson Patrick who finds a diary of Stephens that leads him on a journey to Europe to find out what really happened to his grandfather.
It is a moving and disturbing story that tells not so much of the details of the battles but the effect that the long war had on those who fought in it and those left at home. The character of Stephen was very well drawn, and the mystery element, trying to piece together the details of what happened to him kept me really involved.. ( )

Excellent read - 'living history'