Touching and heartbreaking, Amanda is a sad and yet truthfully trenchant bird’s eye view on a romance that is star-crossed. The novel depicts a couple who must deal with mental illness, cultural disparities, and other problems to reach one another. This is a deeply sad and dark piece of work, so keep those hankies by your side at all times while reading this.

The first World War has ended, and Marion McDunnough has run away from a disastrous relationship and elopement to Galway to find a brand new life in Oxford. She meets Jamie Sebastian, who has survived the Flanders mud only to cope with shellshock and PTSD. They are both afflicted in similar ways – Marion hears voices in her head and can be terribly impulsive, Jamie’s PTD symptoms leave him in great sympathy with her. They bond over literature and fall instantly in love. That impulsivity leads her to a love affair with Jamie. But when she disappears suddenly, becoming a governess for a rich family, Jamie is devastated. Though they will both go on to live complicated lives, Jamie will never stop trying to find Marion. But when they reunite, will they get a chance at forever?

This is a big, sad book filled with great period detail and a heartbreaking romance worth fighting for. Marion is coping with a mental illness, Jamie’s battle scars are right on the surface, and together they make complete sense. But it’s not a simple, conventional, easy love story. It includes the loss of multiple children, some deep and dark memories, and the nature of a harrowing mental illness. It’s a fearless narrative.

It’s not without its flaws. The book fails to place quotation marks around spoken dialogue; this might be distracting for some readers. And perhaps it lingers too long and stretches the premise out a bit. But I couldn’t put down Amanda once I started reading it, and neither will you.