Elusive Dawn by Gabriele Wills

From GoodReads..."It happened slowly at first. Thread by thread, the fabric of privilege and complacency enveloping the Wyndham family began to unravel. A carefree summer at their island house, disrupted by the arrival of long lost kin, ended in tragedy, betrayal, and war. Now, in the compelling sequel to the acclaimed epic, The Summer Before The Storm, Ria and her friends find themselves at the mercy of forces beyond their control. It's late summer, 1916. While some members of the Wyndham family revel in the last resplendent days of the season at their Muskoka cottage, others continue to be drawn inexorably into the Great War, going from a world of misty sunrises across a tranquil lake to deadly moonlight bombing raids, festering trenches, and visceral terror. For Ria, too many things have happened to hope that life would ever return to normal, that innocence could be regained. Caught in a vortex of turbulent events and emotions, she abandons the safety of the sidelines in Britain for the nightmare of France. Her fate as an ambulance driver remains entwined with those of her summer friends, all bound by a sense of duty. Living in the shadows of fear and danger awakens the urgency to grasp life, to live more immediately, more passionately amid the enormity of unprecedented death. Together, their lives weave a tale of liberation and loss, evolution and redemption. Those who survive this cataclysmic time are forever changed, like Canada itself.Impeccably researched, beautifully written, Elusive Dawn will resonate with the reader long after the final page has been turned."

The best thing about trilogies, at least, in my opinion (and  this is my blog, so it my opinion matters...lol!) is that they (usually) get better with each new book. Elusive Dawn is no exception! 

It was so easy to open this novel and start reading about this wonderfully crafted world. I felt as though I had never left it. Elusive Dawn showed events, both big and small in a changing world, and how characters that I love deal with them and each other. 

The second book of The Muskoka Novels was more intense but written with scenes of simplicity and beauty. I felt the characters evolved more and their actions, both good and bad, were completely in keeping with how I believed they should behave.

I think one if more difficult things a writer can try is to put her characters in historical situations. We all know (to some extent, of course) what WWI did to our world. Ms. Wills writes eloquently and evocatively  about  the changing  world and how  it affected the Wyndham family and the other characters.  Lesser authors sometimes gloss over events like that, using them to provide a backdrop. In Elusive Dawn, the horrors are ever present and, sometimes, I turned the page apprehensively... not always wanting to know what happened but also needing to know. Yes, I read  this book so quickly and cannot wait for the final book in the series... which I will tear through but with a little bit of sadness as I know  it will be my final time in this wonderful world that is Gabriele Wills' creation.

~~Thanks to Teddy Rose at Virtual Author Book Tours and the author, Gabriele Wills for providing  Elusive Dawn in exchange for this review.~~