A gritty, action-packed, but uneven war tale.
In this historical novel, an American soldier braves the perils of World War I in France and falls in love with a nurse.
Sam McCormick tragically loses both his parents when the Lusitania is sunk by a German U-boat; they were sailing to England to visit relatives. Hungry for vengeance, he joins the National Guard in 1916 in Wellsville, Ohio, and soon finds himself on the war’s front lines in France, an infantryman who is part of the Rainbow Division. Now a sergeant, Sam is repeatedly exposed to the “terrifying trip into hell” that is combat and the despairing “orgy of death” that is war. He suffers multiple gunshot wounds and a mustard gas attack and twice finds himself sent to a field hospital. The first time, he meets beautiful French nurse Marie Petit and all but instantly falls in love with her. They maintain an epistolary romance conducted under the bleak specter of the war’s uncertainty. In this series opener, Freeland deftly captures the reality of the “life of a front-line doughboy” and the nearly indescribable grimness of a war that seemed interminable. The author clearly aims for literal realism—depicting a field hospital in Château-Thierry, he evokes “the odor of dead and decaying men” as well as the moans and cries of frightened, desolate soldiers. In addition, the plot marches along at a relentless pace—Sam sees plenty of action, with his military adventures culminating in the “monumental battle of the Meuse-Argonne.” But this is a familiar story that rarely departs from the formulas of the genre. For readers with even a cursory knowledge of novels depicting modern wars, there is not much that’s original here. Moreover, the author’s writing is sometimes bland, and the book strikes an earnest, sentimental tone. At one point, musing about Marie, the protagonist thinks: “I’ve never felt this way about a woman before and have no idea how to deal with my feelings. This is not going to be easy!”
A gritty, action-packed, but uneven war tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-954000-40-7
Page Count: 394
Publisher: Publish Authority
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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