Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94335 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Keeps the sorrow of the First World War alive for the next generation
Beautifully written (as always from Marcus Sedgwick), this thought provoking novel will help to bring alive a small part of the horror and sadness of the First World War for the next generation. Brings to life the reality of war in France and the senseless loss of so many men on the fields of Flanders.

In 1915 Sasha (Alexandra) Fox is 17 years old, and lives in her family home, a large house in Brighton. Sasha has a privileged background. Her father is an eminent doctor at the local hospital and Sasha is from an era where young ladies were not expected to work, but to marry well. Sasha's future seems to be mapped out. However, war alters this perspective.

Sasha has two elder brothers; Edgar who is a few years her senior, and Tom (her closest confidant) who is a year older than herself. Edgar enlists as an officer almost as soon as the war has begun, and in 1915 he goes off to the fields of France to fight. Tom is not so sure that he wants to follow in his brother's footsteps, but he has some time to decide as he is not yet 18. Sasha wants to help with the war effort and after much persuasion eventually persuades her father to let her train as a VAD nurse and start work in the local hospital. However, a few strange events with patients in the hospital (Sasha has visions and premonitions of death) lead to her father preventing her from working there any longer.

But Sasha won't give up... And her visions get stronger and become more personal... There's just something that Sasha has to do.

My only criticism is that the paragraphs about Sasha's visions and dreams are not as clear and well-constructed as the rest of the novel. This is probably intentional, but annoys me just slightly. If you enjoy this and want to read a real life account try Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth" and "Letters from a Lost Generation". Although "Foreshadowing" is aimed at older children, this is equally readable by adults as well! I can recommend it.

Brilliant!
This is an astonishing and amazing read. It's dark and filled with death. Excellent details about the horrors of the first world war and the trenches. The wastefulness of the war.

Alexandra is a girl who sees the future and she sees such tragedy that she feels she must try and stop it but is the future already written and what can a young girl, like her, do in the middle of a war?
This is a stunning novel. I couldn't put it down.

Haunting and fanastic
This book is quite gothic in some parts, sad in others and it captures the horror and brutality of war perfectly. It shows the dilemmas of Sasha a young woman with an extraordinary gift in the WW1. Sasha can tell how and when people are going to die, and when her two brothers go to war, she has to use her psychic abilities to save their lives. This book was so good that I read it in one day- I could not put it down. There must have been so much research on the part of the author to make this book as realistic and powerful as it is. An excellent read for teenage boys ang girls alike.