Julian Fellowes, what have you been reading?

[birdienl]

The novel Whisper on the wind by Maureen Lang, which I just finished, takes place in WWI occupied Brussels. The war-wounded lame German officer Max von Bürkel meets a Belgian widow, whose husband has been killed when Germany occupied Belgium. At first she hates the sight of him, as she does all Germans. But as they spend time together out of necessity, a bond forms between them. Max even goes as far as to help the widow Genny and her family escape the country, but doesn't go with him. You see, he has a wife who has been estranged from him after the death of their sons and he feels a duty towards her. He goes back to find her in Germany only to see her contract and die from Spanish flu. In the last pages of the novel he travels to America, where Genny now lives, to find her.

What do you think: big coincidence or Bates/Matthew mashup with a happy ending?