After Julius

A dead war hero’s lingering influence follows his family from World War II–era London to the 1950s English countryside   At the height of World War II, while her husband, Julius, was away at the front, Esme, the mother of two young children, fell in love for the first time. Her lover, a poet named Felix, was fourteen years her junior. After Julius was killed during the evacuation from Dunkirk, Esme hoped that she and Felix would marry. Instead, Felix enlisted, and Esme never saw him again.