This book was just as good as everyone told me it would be. Set in England and France before and during the second World War, the main character in the first third of the narrative is Briony Tallis, a wildly creative thirteen year old who pours her heart into short stories. When her beloved older brother plans a visit back to the family estate, she writes a play to mark the occasion and press-gangs three of her cousins into rehearsals. During the day of excited preparation she witnesses a scene between her older sister Cecelia and the family's gardener Robbie which leads her to believe a crime has been committed. Many years later, working as nurse in the war, Briony admits to herself that what she saw wasn't violence, but passion. She is desperate to re-write the story to create a happy ending for the doomed lovers, but life isn't fiction. Except that- this book is. Never before have I so struggled with thinking a work of historical fiction was an actual piece of history. I came away demanding "But what really happened?" An impossible and delightful question.