Fallen for France by Elizabeth Letts

Fallen for France

A lost Arabian mare. The Amazigh boy who loves her. And a string of amber beads that carries their memories across North Africa and the battlefields of the Great War. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Letts, Fallen for France is a sweeping novel about what history forgets — and what, against all odds, endures.

Add to Goodreads

August 2026

Praise for Fallen for France

This is a beautiful novel, part War Horse and part A Farewell to Arms. The characters are richly developed, the scenes brought to life with cinematic detail. Letts, best known for her equestrian books, has lived in Morocco and France, and it shows. The reader will ache for each of the protagonists as happiness seems just to escape their grasp… or does it? What is happiness, after all? The author makes us think about many deep things in a book that I read compulsively. Highly recommended.
Historical Novels Review, Editor's Choice
Based on historical truths and Letts's own boundless imagination, Fallen for France is a story of serendipitous connections across continents between a gorgeous Arabian mare and an unforgettable cast of characters.
Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones
From Morocco to the Western Front, a thrilling saga, by turns sweeping and intimate. Richly immersive and a splendid read — I could not put it down.
Helen Simonson, author of The Summer Before the War
In Fallen for France, Letts weaves a historically resonant indigenous North African narrative shaped by the gravity of WWI, linking the lives of Amazigh North African characters to Europe through the extraordinary and successful use of an Arabian mare whose journey connects continents, histories, and human destinies. This is both an impressive historical novel and a beautifully written work of literature. Letts's descriptive prose is so rich and exacting that the reader can see, smell, and feel the atmosphere surrounding the central characters.
Dr. Aomar Boum, Maurice Amado Chair of Sephardic Studies, UCLA, and member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
Elizabeth Letts is a spectacularly talented storyteller. Fallen for France has everything — wartime intrigue, exotic locations, and beautifully flawed characters. Prepare to be swept away.
Susan Meissner, author of A Map to Paradise
Masterful and emotionally captivating … Letts explores the connections we can forge unexpectedly with animals and one another, against all odds.
Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of the Book Woman of Troublesome Creek series
Poetic and powerful. Letts does not set aside her reportorial pen, weaving in real history, suffering, and hope, from the Atlas Mountains to the theater of war. Her love of horses is clearly never enough — and we are the luckier for it.
Sarah Maslin Nir, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of Horse Crazy: The Story of a Woman and a World in Love with an Animal
Readers will want to slow down and savor every sentence as Letts takes them on a ride across borders and seas, weaving a complex, beautiful tapestry of stories.
Natalie Keller Reinert, author of The Jump
Letts imbues her microcosm of the Great War with detailed sensory descriptions and multiple perspectives.
Booklist
Elizabeth Letts
About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Letts

#1 New York Times bestselling author of six novels and three works of narrative nonfiction. Her books are available in multiple languages and frequently selected for community reading programs.

She holds degrees from Yale College (where she studied history and creative writing) and Yale School of Nursing.

Read Her Full Story