From Erika Brignati
Title: Happy ever After
Author: Nora Roberts
In book four of a quartet. Parker one of the four main protagonists finds love and a happily ever after. This book is based on Nora Roberts writing based on four childhood best friends who create a wedding planning business named Vows. A summer must read!
From Eileen Effrat
Author: Bobbie Ann Mason
Title: The girl in the blue beret : a novel
A sixty year old World War II bomber pilot returns to France forty years later. His forced retirement as an airline pilot and the death of his wife lead Marshall Stone to embark on a new journey. Relocating to Paris, he intends to locate the men, women, and the girl in the blue beret who hid him and led him to safety over the Pyrenees after his plane crashed in occupied France. Inspired by the true experience of the author’s father-in-law, this is historical fiction at its best. The setting is authentic for both time and place. Mason’s knowledge of World War II is extensive. This is a story about war, survival, and courage.
From Margaret Mezzacapo
Author: Paul Gallico
The Snow Goose
This is a classic story that’s been around for quite a while. For some reason, I had never read it before. It’s short but compelling. You get a feeling about how it’s going to end, and I wished the ending had been different, but it all works and I’d recommend it for all audiences.
From Eileen Effrat
Author: Douglas Jacobsen
Katyn Order
This is a fast paced spy thriller set in Warsaw during August 1944. Polish resistance fighters rise up against the Germans, only to face the more ominous danger of a Soviet occupation and the NKVD. The plot surrounds Adam Nowak, a Polish American dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin and resistance fighter, and Natalia, a covert Polish operative. They join forces to uncover a Soviet document from 1940, the Katyn Order, authorizing the murder of 20,000 Polish army officers and civilians. The British plan to use this document at the Potsdam Conference to prevent the Russians from taking over Poland. To stop this, the Soviet NKVD is ruthless in its attempt to eliminate all evidence regarding this document. This is historical fiction at its best as the story moves from Warsaw to London to Berlin.
From Fran Schwarz
Title: The Eagle has Landed
Author: Jack Higgins
ONe of Jack Higgins earlier books but if you like books based in history this one is a good read
From Gene, Teen Book Reviewer
author: McCormick, Patricia
titl: Purple Heart
Patricia McCormick has already enlightened the world with Sold and Cut. Purple heart is no different. Purple Heart is about a young Matt Duffy who awakens in a hospital in Iraq with no idea how he got there. He was also injured and because he has a traumatic brain injury he does not know how or why. The one little memory he has is of a little Iraqi boy being blown up. The next day he is awarded the Purple Heart medal.
After he has recovered and joined his squad, he keeps having flashbacks about the young Iraqi boy being blown up. Matt soon finds out that the boy was Ali the Iraqi boy that his squad had befriended. With this memory his conscience keeps nagging him. Could he have been the one who killed him? In the second half of the story Matt goes on a series of missions. Although some of the members of his squad get killed, he learns how to pull through and protect the others.
Patricia McCormick uses figurative language and has such a way with words that you feel like you are actually fighting alongside Private Duffy. And the idea with using a younger man with modern war was excellent. I recommend this book to young male readers who have interest in wars. This book is also good for parents who have teenagers that play games such as Call of Duty or Halo Reach. If they like to play those action packed video games, then maybe they’ll like this action packed book.
From Shelley Lauer-Bader
author: See, Lisa
Shanghai Girls
This story of Shanghai during the Japanese invasion and immigration to the US has great period detail. May and Pearl escape China in 1937 and arrive in the United States, although not without great pain and suffering. They finally connect with the men they married through an arranged marriage. The Louie family could be the story of any family immigrating to the United States with the racism, poverty, family tension.
Especially pertinent is the focus on the “paper sons;” we would call them
illegal immigrants today.
Great for a book group discussion.
From Eileen Effrat
author: Hicks, Robert
The widow of the south
Based on an extraordinary and inspirational true story, THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH is a fictional account of a real life woman, Carrie McGavock .
McGavock’s Tennesseee plantation was commandeered into a field hospital
during the bloody Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864. In one
horrific day, 9,200 Union and Confederate soldiers died, while four
generals lay dead on her porch. For those wounded, she was an angel of
mercy. Her courage and compassion knew no bounds. After the war , she
carefully maintained a cemetery for those fallen soldiers on her property.
It was for this she received national recognition and the respect of
all Americans. For those readers who enjoy an authentic, well researched
setting, and an unforgettable character, this book is strongly suggested.
Reviews For You 