5 Words: War, family, friendship, love, community.

Content Warnings: Sexual assault.

It was actually really good and I really enjoyed it, but it was ruined for my by the Americanisms. It's set in Scotland and there are even colloquialisms used, especially in the dialogue, so seeing random Americanisms really pulled me out of the story and it was such a shame, especially as the author is British (although they live in America).

I did really like the slow-burn relationship in this book. I love a slow burn, and this one was done really well and I was quite invested by the end. As a romance it works well, the characters have great chemistry.

I love Land Girl stories and even though Nellie was a side character, she gets plenty of her story told. I liked the peeks at farm life, the struggle even with the extra help.

Wait For me tackles prejudice and violence, war and peace. It does so thoughtfully, exploring grief and regret and love and not always necessarily doing what people expect of you.

I liked how the community as a whole was explored. We got to see different aspects of life and different opinions, there were power struggles and poisonous relationships. I did think it was a shame how Iris's storyline was dealt with, I personally would have preferred her having stood up for herself more as when the book ended it's left her in a frankly awful position.

This was a charming WWII historical romance. While it’s primary focus was the somewhat forbidden romance itself, Wait For Me also examines the nature of war and the way it impacts everyone from those who work the land to those who actually fight. It was intelligently done and was gritty enough without delving so far into the darker waters of WWII that it lost its focus. I’ve seen reviews calling this out for not mentioning the holocaust and would like to point out that in 1945 Scotland as with much of the UK and in fact the rest of the world, the Holocaust was not known about. There were rumours of camps but no one really understood exactly what was happening there until the Allies took Germany. Sometimes entire towns of people near the camps didn’t know for certain what was going on. I would respectfully point out that not every WWII story has to be about the Holocaust. It was terrible, it should never be forgotten. There are other terrible things that happened in the shadow of WWII – some of which were perpetrated by the Allies – you know? The so called good guys? (Shall we talk about the Rape of Berlin for instance?) Anyway, I digress. My point is this book did what it set out to do. It portrayed first love against seemingly impossible odds and rehumanised those who had been dehumanised by war. Inside the machinery of war, there is no good or bad on a large scale, there is only survival and conscience for the individual. I think Leech did an excellent job or portraying this. Romance isn’t my bag really but this was very sweet, poignant and replete with pleasing historical detail.