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In Memoriam  By  cover art

In Memoriam

By: Alice Winn
Narrated by: Christian Coulson
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Publisher's summary

GMA BUZZ PICK • INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER AND AWARD WINNER • A haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during World War I • “Will live in your mind long after you’ve closed the final pages.” —Maggie O’Farrell, best-selling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait

A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR

“In Memoriam is the story of a great tragedy, but it is also a moving portrait of young love, and there is often a lightness to the book.”—The New York Times

It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.

Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle--an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood--without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.

An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.

©2023 Alice Winn (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, BookPage, Shelf Awareness, and Spectator

"Magnificent—dazzling and wrenching, witty and wildly romantic, with echoes of Brideshead Revisited and Atonement. I loved it.” —Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians

“An epic love story amid the brutalities of war.” People

“Glorious, addictive, exquisite . . . I couldn’t put it down.” —Hugh Ryan, New York Times Book Review

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What listeners say about In Memoriam

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A Riveting book

This was an absolutely riveting read.

Alice Winn does an amazing job at bringing the horrors of War, and in particular, of World War One, to light. As a Historian who finds more fascination in the First World War, finding books like this is rare. It was as if I were living the war through Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt.

The LGBT love plot was also truly beautiful to read, and I found myself having to put the book down every so often to really let the ongoing plot soak in. I unashamedly cried a few times.

And finally, the characterization, and the way that War can change people, was so beautifully written. I...truly, could not give this book anything more than this without spoilers. And I think that, like one of our beloved boys, I could not find the proper words.

The narration is amazing as well. Don't worry when you get to the lists in the book. The first time the names were read, it through me off too with the overlapping words. But it is a brilliant directive vision to do so.

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Devastatingly Beautiful & Heartbreaking

This is now my all-time favorite novel. It is exquisitely narrated by Christian Coulson. Alice Winn is a brilliant writer and wise beyond her age. I could not recommend this audio book more. I will now purchase the novel so that I can immerse myself in all its searing beauty.

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Amazing

This book is unbelievably fantastic.
The characters are extremely Three dimensional and you love them in spite of their faults. The history is well researched and incredibly well described. Definitely A contender for my ten favorite books list!

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Devastatingly beautiful

Against the backdrop of The Grewt War is a much quieter but deeper battle the two men at the center of this gorgeous book fight, both against themselves and each other. Winn handles it all with wit, poetry, and no small amount of brutal truth and emotion.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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The historical romance

Beautiful romance with a somber but hopeful ending, a well told story that illustrates the atrocities and reality of war

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Beautiful and haunting

A vivid and devastating story about how love survives — or doesn’t — the horrors of war. Winn is a master of prose and character, and she weaves bright threads of hope and humor through a tapestry of chilling violence and bleak despair. This book will haunt me for a long time.

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This Story Will Stay With You

A devestating picture of the horrors of WW1 trench warfare, Ypres and the Somme, yet a marvelous love story.

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Epic Gay Romance during WW1 Trench Warfare

Worth every hour of listening. Lost myself completely in this book; completely transported to wartime Europe in 1914.

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Brilliant

A story that needed to be told & debut novelist Alice Winn tells it so brilliantly. A profoundly moving tale of love and war I won't soon forget.

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Outstanding

I felt really lost with my thoughts when it was over.

Great performance, reading the names in the school newspaper was so bleak.

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1 person found this helpful