Midnight on the Marne by Sarah Adlakha

I think this book is possibly better than I thought it was. I am not a huge fan of science fiction or alternative history (which is a handicap for this book), but I very much enjoyed the author's debut novel, which features both, so eagerly started this one. The novel has at it's center a battle that turned the course of WWI. The Second Battle of the Marne occurred in the summer of 1918, with American troops as part of the Allied forces, and was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The attack failed when an Allied counterattack, supported by several hundred tanks, overwhelmed the Germans on their right flank, inflicting severe casualties. A counter offensive was launched that eventually led to the end of the war in November. The premise here is what would have happened if the battle had failed. The writing is very solid, good dialogue, likeable characters that I cared about, but I found the what if to go on too long and the battle part of the novel to be less compelling. To be fair, I read War and Peace last year, the ultimate work of fiction to depict battles, written by a combat veteran, so maybe my bar is too damn high.