While both Nora and Charlotte navigate motherhood under traumatic circumstances, their paths diverge significantly. Compare and contrast their experiences, analyzing how their different social positions and psychological responses to loss illustrate the novel’s message about the conflicting duties of womanhood in wartime.

Although When the World Fell Silent is Alward’s historical fiction debut, she has published many romance novels. How does her presentation of love and family in this novel resemble or differ from those in her earlier works? What other patterns can you identify across her writings?

How are the characters’ key decisions and understandings of womanhood influenced by the patriarchal social norms of early 20th-century Canada? To what extent does the novel’s resolution challenge or reaffirm these norms?

How do Nora’s relationships with Alley Vienot and Neil McLeod evolve over the course of the novel? How do these shifting dynamics contribute to the author’s messages about honor, duty, and responsibility?

How do Nora and Charlotte’s experiences compare and contrast with those of historical figures in nonfiction texts about women during World War I, such as Virginia Nicholson’s Singled Out (2008) and Wendy Moore’s No Man’s Land (2020)? Discuss how the different authors examine the conflicting duties of womanhood in wartime.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Charlotte’s trauma impacts her mental health. Analyze the literary techniques Alward employs to portray Charlotte’s psychological journey from delusion to a painful confrontation with the truth.

How does When the World Fell Silent use the specific historical context of World War I to complicate the relationship between a woman’s public duty and her private desires?

Consider Matron Cotton’s relationship with the theme of the conflicting duties of womanhood in wartime. In what ways does she represent a more “modern” understanding of womanhood, and in what ways does she uphold her society’s sexist views? What message is Alward communicating through this character?