The First World War has ended, but it hasn’t gone away

© Benjamin Turner When the War Came Home is Welsh author Lesley Parr’s second historical fiction novel for children. Just like her debut, The Valley of Lost Secrets, it is full of heart, adventure and intrigue.

When Natty has to move to a new village, she meets two young soldiers who are still battling the effects of war. Huw can’t forget the terrible things he’s seen, but Johnny doesn’t even remember who he is.

As Natty tries to keep a secret and unravel a mystery, she finds her own way to fight for what she believes in - and learns that some things should never be forgotten.

Here is a sneak peek extract taken from the book which is available online and in all good bookshops now …

I walk and walk, every step taking me away from this new life I don’t want. A new school, another just-for-now place to live, new people.

A bus passes and I realise I’m on the road out, the road to Libanwy. I want to keep going, keep walking until I get home.

The hill’s getting steeper, my chest getting tighter. I stop and sit on a low wall, my back to the road, and look out across the fields and up into the mountains. The view’s not so different to the one I know, but I might as well be a hundred miles away.

There’s the Gweld, and the open space Nerys said is good for picnics and rolling down. An odd, spluttering laugh bursts out of me as I picture her tumbling down the mountain. I bet she goes like heck. Now that I’ve caught my breath, I get up and step over the wall. The road to Libanwy disappears over the top of the hill. Grudgingly I turn and head back down to Ynysfach.

In the distance, between the trees and yellow daffodils, is a perfect square. The bowling green. I wonder if Johnny, Charles and Lavinia are there now. She said they are most days.

I smile, remembering Charles’s jokes and Johnny saying ‘speckled bread’. It felt like – I don’t know – like we had something in common. More than me and Nerys ever will. Maybe because this is her home, not ours. Me, Johnny, Charles … we’ve all been forced to come here, we didn’t choose this place. I look down at my boots as I walk, at my bootlaces, and Johnny’s words float into my mind:

But I didn’t come home, did I?

All that time in Belgium, when all they ever wanted was to win the war and get back home. That’s so much worse than Mam losing another job and us having to come to Ynysfach. Here I am, feeling sorry for myself, when Johnny doesn’t even know where his home is.

A mad thought comes into my head.

And it grows and grows.

I walk faster, towards the park.