Twenty-one-year-old Lucy is frustrated with her constrained life in Hertfordshire, teaching and keeping house for her domineering father.
But she is happy to be living next door to Tom and Jamie, two brothers she has known since childhood, and whom she loves equally.
Her life is turned upside down when, in 1936, Tom decides he must travel to Spain to fight in the bloody Spanish Civil War. He is quickly followed by Jamie who, much to Lucy’s despair, is supporting General Franco.
To the dismay of her irascible father, Lucy decides that the only way to bring her boys back safely is to travel to Spain herself to persuade them to come home.
Yet when she sees the horrific effects of the war, she quickly becomes immersed in the lifesaving work the Quakers are doing to help the civilian population, many of whom are refugees.
As the war progresses and the situation becomes increasingly perilous, Lucy realises that the challenge going forward is not so much which brother she will end up with, but whether any of them will survive the carnage long enough to decide.
Acts of Love and War by Maggie Brookes is out in paperback on 3 August, 2023.
Maggie has written about the real historical events that inspired her book in The Spanish Civil War: a war against children.
