Heather Shaw asked Charles Todd:

Hi there, Shell shock plays a HUGE role in the Ian Rutledge series and the last Bess Crawford book showed early signs as well. Will Bess also experience her version of shell shock? Will you explore her struggles of adapting to life after the war? (coming to grips with not being on a battlefield, grieving the loss of friends, experiencing the changes in the role of women following the war, etc.)

Charles Todd Bess has already mentioned In several books her own nightmares and struggles with PTSD. She doesn’t dwell on it, she just accepts that she isn’t immune to what the men suffered. Young women who left their quiet and safe lives to face terrible wounds or an aid station overrun by an enemy force or holding a dying man’s hand to his last breath, then taking the hand of another, and another, were seldom asked if they too suffered. But they did. Some had nervous breakdowns. And Bess, like so many, tries not to make an issue of her own troubles. Sadly. We have tried In the series to capture what war was like for these women, and it has led to such admiration for their spirit and their courage And their strength. Bess will have to face it herself eventually.

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