A Royal Newfoundland Regiment Love Story
In the summer of 1914, Daniel Beresford's innocent love affair with the merchant's daughter is discovered, forcing him to make an impossible decision to save his family from financial ruin. When news of the First World War reaches Middle Tickle, Daniel, who is torn between his love for Emma Tavenor and his responsibility to his family, enlists in the Newfoundland Regiment and departs for training.
When Emma learns her father is to blame for Daniel's unexplained departure, she follows him to England, hoping they'll be reunited. Yet on the voyage, she discovers the regiment has been called up and is already engaged in battle. She realizes her only hope of finding Daniel is to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment and make her way to the Western Front.
In 1916, on the eve of the Battle of the Somme, Emma and Daniel are reunited for a single, impassioned night near Beaumont-Hamel. Can the love they share survive the barriers of class and the horrors of battle? Or are their lives fated to join what would later be called a lost generation?

Melanie Martin was born on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador but spent her formative years in Northern Manitoba. She has a master’s degree in Newfoundland history from Memorial University and has contributed to historical journals, websites, anthologies, and educational textbooks on significant events in Newfoundland and Labrador’s turbulent social and political history, specifically around resettlement and the industrialization attempts during the Smallwood years.Her interest in Newfoundland and Labrador’s role in the First World War has been ongoing since her first visit to Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont-Hamel, France, in 2006. Since then she has visited all the sites significant to the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in France, Belgium, and Turkey. Melanie works for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and leads the First World War commemorations file, Honour 100. She resides in St. John’s with her husband, Kris, their twin girls, Katelin and Khloe, and their dog, Dyson, who mourns for the days when his mother didn’t write and he was an only child.

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