In Memoriam by Alice Winn

The Schoolboys: Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood are best friends at Preshute, an elite English boarding school. Both are deeply in love with each other but keep it hidden—Gaunt because of his half-German heritage and social awkwardness, and Ellwood behind a defense mechanism of poetry and charm.

The War: In 1914, World War I erupts. Gaunt's family pressures him to enlist to clear their German name. Ellwood and their other classmates quickly follow him to the Western Front, trading the comforts of aristocracy for the muddy, brutal reality of the trenches.

The Connection: Amid the horrors of the battlefield, the two young men find each other again. The book follows their survival, the trauma of combat, and a romance that blooms in a world where their peers are dying daily.