Illumination by Matthew Plampin. It is really good! It was unusually about the Franco-Prussian war which I found interesting. I did not realise how far into France the Prussian army got. It tracks the experience of Hannah, an English painter, during the conflict and her heroic lover, Jean-Jacques Allix. The topic was different and I liked the way it was written. It also showed the development of hot air balloons during the period, although some of this was fiction!! There were no real defects in the novel, apart from the predictable ending. However even the ending did not spoil the overall feeling of the book.