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The Storms of War

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The Storms of War

By: Kate Williams
Narrated by: Katie Scarfe
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About this listen

 In the idyllic early summer of 1914, life is good for the de Witt family. German Rudolf and his aristocratic English wife Verena are planning the wedding of their daughter, Emmeline, while their eldest son Arthur is studying in Paris and Michael is just back from his first term at Cambridge. Celia, the youngest of the de Witt children, is on the brink of adulthood, and secretly dreams of escaping her carefully mapped out future and exploring the world.

But with the onslaught of war, the de Witts find themselves in danger of losing everything they hold dear. As Celia struggles to make sense of the changing world around her, she lies about her age to join the war effort and finds herself embroiled in a complex plot that puts her and those she loves in danger.

With gripping detail and brilliant empathy, Kate Williams tells the story of Celia and her family as they are shunned by a society that previously embraced them, torn apart by sorrow, and buffeted and changed by the storms of war.

Read by Katie Scarfe

(p) 2015 Orion Publishing Group©2014 Kate Williams Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction War

Critic reviews

a big juicy drama set on the eve of the First World War. TV historian Kate Williams paints a spellbinding portrait of a family clinging on desperately to their privileged way of life
A beautifully conjured family saga. Fans of DOWNTON ABBEY will love it (Alison Weir)
Brilliant - a passionate and poignant story of a glittering family on the precipice of a vanished world. Spellbinding, gripping and beautiful - a must read . . . the new CAZALET CHRONICLES (Lisa Hilton)
[An] all-encompassing, sweeping epic. It's a book to get immersed in for hours at a time . . . powerful . . . a wonderful achievement (Katherine Webb)
A wonderful evocation of a family torn apart by war, packed with drama and written with a sensitive warmth and fantastic historical insight (Imogen Robertson)
Celia de Witt is the 15 year old daughter of a German born industrialist and his aristocratic wife who live in a magnificent country house; her elder sister is about to have a grand society wedding. What could go wrong? The First World War, that's what ... shades of Downton, with a dash of Atonement
This is the first part in a trilogy set against the the First World War that delves into the complexities of loyalty and survival as life in the de Witt family is ineradicably changed.
The new novel by the historian Kate Williams, is an epic story about a young woman whose idyllic world is shattered by the First World War,
Williams is too good a historian for melodramatic sentimentality; trusting the historical detail, the reader can relax into a well-paced, truly affecting narrative . . . Richly detailed, light of foot, Williams tantalises with loose ends and disturbs with shocking shadows
This terrific saga comes with a fascinating twist ... Williams has a gift for showing how great movements in history affect the lives of people caught up in them (Kate Saunders)
Williams keeps her story moving and the result is a vivid portrait of a perennially fascinating period of history. (Stephanie Merritt)
Wartime-saga lovers will be kept on their toes to the end.
Historian Kate Williams's epic about the First World War starts in the idyllic country mansion of the wealthy de Witt family ... [she] outlines the tragedy of war but also reveals .. how this first modern conflict changed British society beyond recognition.
Kate Williams in a vivid writer, conjuring atmosphere through scents and tastes as well as period props. The enjoyable elements of a sweeping family saga are present, but Williams also develops a sense of the emotional and psychological revolutions, both collective and individual, that were catalysed by the conflict (Lisa Hilton)
This book has more firepower than DOWNTON . . . Powerful storytelling. (Alex Gordon)
All stars
Most relevant

What did you like best about Storms of War? What did you like least?

writing and narration weak, somewhere in there is a good story

What didn’t you like about Katie Scarfe’s performance?

phrasing and emphasis very odd which completely got in the way of the story.

Was Storms of War worth the listening time?

No

Any additional comments?

Some very 'modern' grammar /writing which did not fit the tone. disappointing.

promises more than it delivers

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I liked the theme but found it too long drawn out in places.
I would not recommend it

Storms of War

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I read all three books and found it very odd that the Author went over old grounds instead of going on to the Second World War and continuing the story of Celia , Tom and young Michael in Storms of war . It left me wondering , not very satisfactory

Storms of war

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On the surface this is an easy listen novel about the 1st World War, but it also contains some very interesting insights into the social life of the time. I had never really thought about what happened to those of German descent in the First World War although quite a lot has been written about this subject with relevance to the Second World War, and it was quite shocking. I also learned a lot about the role of women in WW1 and all this was wrapped up in a palatable story about a family fragmented by war.

This was an enjoyable listen and I look forward to hearing the next two books in the series. I felt like throttling Celia, the main character, sometimes in this book so I hope she has grown up a bit and gets more sensible in the sequels!!

Interesting insights

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