Book Review: A Light Beyond the Trenches by Alan Hlad - Heartbreaking and Hopeful World War Story
- Mar 16, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 4
Heartbreaking yet filled with hope, Alan Hlad’s A Light Beyond the Trenches is a vivid, character-driven journey that will stay with you long after the last page.
At-a-Glance
Tone: Heartbreaking, immersive, and hopeful
Setting: World War I (battlefields, training camps, and civilian life)
Genre: Historical fiction/wartime drama
Themes: War and its human cost, friendship and loyalty, resilience, hope in dark times
Best for readers of: Emotional, character-driven historical fiction; stories that blend the realities of war with hope and human connection
Book Review for A Light Beyond the Trenches by Alan Hlad
Beautifully written, heartbreaking, and not at all what I expected. I'm not usually a fan of world war novels, but the unique take sold me, and I'm glad I gave it a chance. Anna, Max, and Nia (the German Shepherd) are all wonderful and relatable characters who come alive as the story evolves. Each one brings their own dynamic to the story, yet together they seem as a cohesive unit, as though one cannot fully exist in the book without the other.
The heartbreaking horrors of war—for soldiers and civilians alive—are vivid and tearful, and yet, I appreciate how the author managed to interject hope throughout. Alan Hlad has created such a realistic telling that one cannot help but be transported to the battlefields, the training fields, and at each character's side as they battle demons, within and without.
There is so much to recommend this book, and rather than retell every aspect of it, I will simply recommend it to anyone who appreciates well-written historical fiction.
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Book Information
Genre: Historical Fiction/WWI
Release: March 29, 2022
Publisher: Kensington (A John Scognamiglio Book)
Format Read: E-Book
Source: Provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Note from reviewer on content: "I would say this is PG-13, but war content can be difficult to rate as each person may view elements of wartime violence and suffering differently. There is nothing objectionable, in my opinion, but I recommend that those who are sensitive to suffering and sadness in wartime read with caution. I thought the author did a very good job."
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About the Book
A Light Beyond the Trenches by Alan Hlad
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Long Flight Home, a WWI novel both tender and exciting, as a German Red Cross nurse joins the world's first guide dog training school for the blind and begins a quest to show a Jewish pianist who was blinded on the battlefield that life is worth living.
A fascinating, poignant, and life-affirming tale of heroism and resilience in World War I based on the true story of the first school to train guide dogs for the blind…
By April 1916, the fervor that accompanied war's outbreak has faded. In its place is a grim reality. Throughout Germany, essentials are rationed. Hope, too, is in short supply. Anna Zeller, whose fiancé, Bruno, is fighting on the western front, works as a nurse at an overcrowded hospital in Oldenburg, trying to comfort men broken in body and spirit. But during a visit from Dr. Stalling, the director of the Red Cross Ambulance Dogs Association, she witnesses a rare spark of optimism: as a German shepherd guides a battle-blinded soldier over a garden path, Dr. Stalling is inspired with an idea—to train dogs as companions for sightless veterans.
Anna convinces Dr. Stalling to let her work at his new guide dog training school. Some of the dogs that arrive are themselves veterans of war, including Nia, a German shepherd with trench-damaged paws. Anna brings the ailing Nia home and secretly tends and trains her, convinced she may yet be the perfect guide for the right soldier. In Max Benesch, a Jewish soldier blinded by chlorine gas at the front, Nia finds her person.
War has taken Max's sight, his fiancée, and his hopes of being a composer. Yet despite all he's given for his country, the tide of anti-Semitism at home is rising, and Max encounters it first-hand in one of the school's trainers, who is determined to make Max fail. Still, through Anna's prompting, he rediscovers his passion for music. But as Anna discovers more about the conflict's escalating brutality—and Bruno's role in it—she realizes how impossible it will be for any of them to escape the war unscathed...
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