The Walnut Tree

Set in the first days of World War I, with Christmas as the backdrop, this novel blends romance and mystery. Its heroine serves as a nurse close to the fighting, tending soldiers who have been wounded, and she risks her own safety to do so. Along the way she falls in love with a man who may be off limits to her, and the story follows how that attachment grows against the danger of the war.

Charles Todd is a mother-and-son writing team, and they are best known for their series featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge and the battlefield nurse Bess Crawford. This standalone book moves away from those series to focus on a single bittersweet love story woven with a puzzle.

Readers who enjoy British period fiction, especially stories with wartime settings and a strong sense of place, will find this book appealing.