#BookReview: The Golden Gate by Amy Chua

More Noir Than Thriller. This is a *great* detective story set in pre-D-Day 1944 San Francisco that truly reads as more of a noir than an actual thriller. There is quite a bit of mystery and intrigue, but very few murders or even action sequences and really a rather lot of mind games and misdirection. So while it has bone-chilling moments, I really wouldn’t market this thing as a “thriller”. Beyond that, though, truly a superb book that combines history that many likely didn’t know (I know *I* didn’t, and American History is one of my stronger non-degree-oriented knowledge sets) with a *just* real enough story that you could believe it could have actually happened, if you were not 100% aware as you’re reading it that it is, in fact, historical fiction. Thus, it actually ranks as one of the *stronger* historical fiction tales around – and particularly noteworthy for a debut (in fiction anyway) author. While there is an element of “white guy bad” here, there is also a crucial *good* white guy, which brings enough of a balance to avoid any allegations of *blatant* racism, even as both the story itself and the author’s note at the back reveal that there is quite a bit of anti-white animus animating the story. But as this is primarily a story of non-white characters and their struggles during the Japanese Internment Camp era of US History, along with a dose of international intrigue with the addition of several more non-white characters from another prominent region outside of the US but significant during the era (and since), it isn’t so truly blatant or pervasive as to really mar the story at all. Indeed, it is only after finishing the book, and particularly while reading the author’s note, that the anti-white sentiment is *really* noticeable. So yet again, kudos for hiding in plain site with that one. Overall, this is truly a rather strong (fiction) debut, and it will be interesting to see what the author can do in this space with any sophomore effort. Very much recommended.

This review of The Golden Gate by Amy Chua was originally written on October 5, 2023.

#BookReview: Ira Hayes by Tom Holm

Johnny Cash Was (At Least Partly) Wrong! Admittedly, the title of this review is mostly click-bait. But it *is* an accurate summary of this text – and yes, the text does at least briefly examine the song itself as well. Holm does a remarkable job of showing the history that created Ira Hayes, one of the six men immortalized forever in “The Photograph” of the American flag raising at Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima during the WWII battle which became the basis of so many memorials… including a not-small one in Washington, DC. As with the better history books, Holm shows the relevant histories that lead into the famous events at hand- and the biography and histories of the fallout of the events, including the various impacts to both the man Ira Hayes and the cultural icon/ touchstone Ira Hayes. Yes, including the various movies, the various incarnations of The Ballad of Ira Hayes (including the Man in Black’s), and even discussing the book The Flags of Our Fathers and its movie incarnation as well. At 22% documentation, it is reasonably well documented, and there are no overly startling revelations here – though there is perhaps much new knowledge, depending on one’s own knowledge set when coming into this book. For example, the histories of the Akimel and Apache wars and interactions, and even how they waged war (both the weapons involved and the tactics and ceremonies) was new knowledge to me – and utterly fascinating.

Overall a well told and well examined history with no obvious flaws or even any overt political diatribes, this is a book that anyone interested in a more complete tale of Ira Hayes will enjoy. Very much recommended.

This review of Ira Hayes by Tom Holm was originally written on July 28, 2023.

#BookReview: The Secret Midwife by Soraya M. Lane

Soraya Lane Takes On Auschwitz. How can you be a historical fiction writer who mostly focuses on the European theater of WWII… and *not*, at some point, do a story about Auschwitz? Well, the answer here is… you can’t, and this is Lane’s take on it.

Now, how can you be an amateur historian, with large amounts of knowledge about large amounts of things – and familial ties to the liberation of concentration camps during WWII to boot – and *want* to read a story about Auschwitz, knowing all too well the very real horrors there, among the worst humanity has ever inflicted upon humanity? (Arguably worse than the Imperial Japanese military’s Unit 731 in overall scale, though it seems that Unit 731 may have been even more horrific – if such a thing is possible.) My answer is… I didn’t and don’t, but I’ve read many of Lane’s books and trust *her*.

As it turns out, my trust is well placed. Lane manages to craft an Auschwitz tale that never shirks from discussing the horrors of that facility – while never showing them in brutal, sadistic detail the way an author with a more horror-genre nature might. Instead, Lane takes a page from Titanic (and a school assignment I once had that I’m fairly certain predates that movie, and which I’m coming to realize ever more that I had really done the way I want to now as an adult when it was possible as a child) in creating a dual timeline (shocker, I know, for long time fans of Lane) tale of hope and survival against the most brutal and desolate backdrop possible in Europe during that particular period. Taking inspiration from a variety of real life people who really did a lot of the things Lane has her characters doing to help people survive, Lane manages to show the goodness of some people and the willingness to risk their own lives in order to do the right thing, even in the very heart of the place doing so many very wrong things. Indeed, even the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele is a recurring character throughout the tale – though to be clear, while always being clear about the horrors he was responsible for while never directly showing them “on screen”.

Longtime fans of Lane will note her usual stylings are completely in play here, as is her usual historical accuracy to a relatively high degree, while still taking the occasional artistic liberty where necessary to tell the story she is telling in the manner in which she wanted to tell it. Even here, the liberties are more subtle than jarring, almost to the point of being indetectable.

The horrors of Auschwitz in particular are some of the most well known brutalities of the Jewish Holocaust of WWII, at least in the West. (I’m told they still aren’t as well known in certain Eastern circles? But I have no real way of knowing, having never lived outside the southern US.) At on that level, perhaps some might argue that an author like Lane should instead pursue her “normal” focus and tell the *other*, far lesser known, stories. To that, I point out that among the first books I read from her was about perhaps *the* most famous event of WWII in the American zeitgeist at minimum (*arguably* more famous than even the events of D-Day nearly three years later), the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In between these two well known events, Lane *has* been writing about lesser known events, indeed some that even this amateur historian had never heard of and had to learn about in more detail after reading one of Lane’s books. (Which I absolutely encourage all of her readers to do.) I also point out that just because a particular thing is well known, doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t continue to be explored – even as I readily encourage exploration of the lesser known topics as well, which again = Lane also does.

Overall, this is an appropriately sober and stark tale about one of the darkest stories in all of WWII, while still shining a light on the very real lives women lived in the period and events in question and still showing the goodness of humanity and the light of hope even in the darkest of situations, as Lane tries to do in all of her tales. Very much recommended.

This review of The Secret Midwife by Soraya M. Lane was originally written on July 27, 2023.

#BlogTour: Women Of The Post by Joshunda Sanders

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a great work that shows the complex yet all too real lives of some WWII veterans you’ve likely never heard of. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Women Of The Post by Joshunda Sanders.

Here’s what I had to say about it on Goodreads:

Well Told Story Based On Real Unit/ People. This is a story probably unlike most any other you’ve encountered in historical fiction of WWII. Even if you’ve read about mail carrriers (there are a few such books out that I’m aware of, and likely more that I’m not), you likely haven’t read about *these* mail clerks. Even if you’ve read about African American servicemembers during the war, you likely haven’t read about *these* African American servicemembers during the war. Even if you’ve read about LGBT people during the war… you get the idea.

One thing that became interesting to me as I read this was thinking of the grandmother I don’t often think of much, my mom’s mom. But this was the grandmother that was married during WWII, and who bore her first child – my oldest uncle – just months before D-Day. Her husband at the time, my grandfather, I’ve spoken of a fair amount in reviews of WWII books, including his Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge. But here, the connection is with his wife, back home in Georgia alone (presumably with family around) with their infant son. You see, even when I knew her almost 40 years later, during the dawn of the Personal Computer era and as the Net was coming online (she would die a few years after the Dot Com Bust of the mid 2000s, having outlived both of her husbands and sharing this earth for over 23 years with me)… that woman always *loved* writing and receiving letters. Actual, handwritten, long form, letters. As with my grandfathers and their experiences in WWII, I can’t *know* what she went through living through that era – I never once asked her about it. But seeing how letters and morale were stressed so dearly in this tale here, and knowing her own situation at the time, I can maybe make some assumptions about how *I* would feel in similar situations, and it brings another level of depth to both this tale and my memories of her life.

Even if you don’t have a personal connection, however tenuous, to the subject here though, this really is an interesting and clearly at least somewhat well researched tale showing a “based on” level tale of real people who really lived and did and likely experienced these very things during that period, up to and including the Klan burning crosses in their front yards and the active discrimination that was so rampant even after the war, even well after supposed “integration”.

About the only suspect detail here is the idea that lesbians could live more comfortably in post-war Ohio than in South Carolina, but that is perhaps explained away as being able to get to an area where neither person is known by anyone, and thus be able to craft your own identity and reputation away from those who have ever known anything but what you tell and present to them. Which, one could argue (and build a genuinely solid case for) is simply no longer possible in today’s hyper-connected world.

Overall truly a great work that shows the complex yet all too real lives of some WWII veterans you’ve likely never heard of. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Women Of The Post by Joshunda Sanders”

#BookReview: The Girl In Lifeboat Six by Eliza Graham

Complicated Story. This tale is one of those stories where the front half and back half are wildly divergent, and thus one’s feelings of the overall tale may become more complex and nuanced – even as this book gets ever more preachy towards the end, even though it too started out more nuanced.

The front half of the book, spending roughly 30% of the front of the book establishing the various characters and their relationships, as well as the esteemed luxury liner they all find themselves on in the early periods of WWII – before December 1941. The next 20% or so is then spent in disaster/ survival mode, showing what happens with these characters as the worst happens and they are now in a desperate fight for survival. Indeed, this section even feels very reminiscent of the tales of the Titanic survivors, though I suppose those are only the most famous of the unknowable number of people over the course of human history to survive a ship sinking in the northern Atlantic ocean. Through these two sections in particular, we get a very good degree of nuance and showing, as The Imitation Game said it best “sometimes it is those no one imagines anything of that do the things that no one can imagine”.

The back half of the tale begins to focus more and more on the aftermath of the sinking – and of British efforts to get America involved. This is where, as an American who has studied the relevant histories in some depth and who had direct family involvement in the era… the tale gets a LOT more complicated, personally. The writing is still great, and the tale itself flows very well. But my own thoughts and reactions to the tale became much more complicated.

At the time of the setting of this tale, one of my grandfathers had already enlisted in the US Army, knowing a war was on the horizon. It would be two more years, as the US military built up to the event now known as D-Day, before my other grandfather would come into the Army. While I never knew this second grandfather – he died weeks after my birth – I learned quite well his legacy in my own life, from the stories of my grandmother (his ex-wife) and my dad (who has made his point in life to largely do the opposite of what his own father did). The first grandfather, I shared the last 20 years of his life with the first 20 years of mine, and knew him as little more than a somewhat stereotypical southern US farmer grandfather. By the time I came around – and apparently even when my mom was growing up – he *NEVER* spoke of his time in WWII. I learned much when I got both of their service records about a decade ago now, and this is where my more complicated feelings about this book come to bear.

The first grandfather clearly believed similarly to our characters here in the back half of the tale, that Hitler *must* be stopped and America *must* join the fight. no matter the reason or cost. (Thinking of this now, it sounds eerily similar to statements some make about another ongoing European war in 2023…) Both of my grandfathers were at the Battle of the Bulge, and this first grandfather got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart because when he was ordered to clear a building on a particular corner in a tiny hamlet of a town, the Germans in that building came out in body bags, and he came out with an injury severe enough to send him to the field hospital. That was 38 years to the day before my birth, when his oldest son was something like 18 months old and my mother – his next to youngest child – was far off. He would die 58 years and a few weeks after that day, apparently the most decorated WWII veteran in his home County at the time of his death.

But that other grandfather. He was at the Bulge, but he was AAA infantry – and at that point, AAA infantry was being used for little more than cannon fodder for German tanks, sometimes literally being told to make do with broomsticks painted black to look like rifles. He was in the Division that liberated the first concentration camps on the American side of the war, though I have no record of where he individually was at that time. From hearing the second and third hand stories over the years, these experiences changed him – and little for the better. Nothing excuses what he became… but it was these very experiences, this very change that he had resisted for so long… what would have changed in *my own life* had that grandfather never been there, had the US never been in the war at all?

So getting back to the book, when the back half here is spent trying to manipulate the press into manipulating America into a war, when it is a tale of working to manipulate the press to make certain domestically popular positions as unpopular as they are in other nations – particularly nations America spent literally two *other* wars breaking away from… it becomes a much more complicated tale, both in the setting at the time and in the current environment where press manipulation is all too rampant – and equally, inaccurate cries of press manipulation (itself a press manipulation) are also all too rampant. Reading it with my own history of the war then and my own thoughts on the war now, the tale becomes much more complicated in this back half.

And yet, in the end, it really is a great tale, solidly told, and sometimes… sometimes we need those complicated stories that roil our hearts, without destroying them. Sometimes we need those complicated stories that make us think, both of our histories and of our current realities. Sometimes we need a tale that while escapism on its face, isn’t quite the escapism we were expecting and instead confronts us with these Big Complicated Ideas.

If you’re looking for a more “pure escapism” “Summer Read”… maybe this isn’t that. And maybe you should read it anyway.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Girl In Lifeboat Six by Eliza Graham was originally written on July 5, 2023.

#BlogTour: The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a truly remarkable WWII historical spy novel. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

Powerful Multi-Timeline Story Weaves Multiple Threads Into Amazing Tapestry. You know those centuries old tapestries where when you look at them, you’re almost *positive* they *had* to have been painted *after* being woven – and then you see the details and realize that, no, the threads really were placed together to the level of precision required to produce the scene you see from further away? This book is the literary equivalent of one of those types of tapestries.

Yes, particularly early in the tale it is somewhat hard to distinguish who is who in the alternating chapters, as while each chapter is headed by the lady’s real name, more often the story is told (particularly of the actual spies during the war) using their code names. So it can take a while to piece together who is who, which is perhaps the only glaring weakness of this particular tapestry. (We’ll detail a more minor one, that only some will have problems with, momentarily.)

But the piece overall is truly stunning in both its breadth and its attention to minutia level details, all while weaving together a story that while the reader *knows* it is fiction… almost seems all *too* real. Particularly in certain sequences… it gets quite uncomfortable. (Though, to be clear and to alleviate some concerns, never in a sexual way. More along the lines of V for Vendetta’s more uncomfortable sequences… and then these get even worse.)

Indeed, the quibble level issues are that perhaps, given the story told, things are wrapped up a little *too* neatly in the end. If you like every possible string fully tied off, you’re going to like this one. If you prefer more open ended sequences when those are called for… well, I just told you everything gets tied off into nice little bows. The other quibble that some might argue – and would usually argue is more than a quibble, but I’m actively downplaying it here because it *is* a minor issue in the grand scheme of this story and how it is told – is the presence of an LGBT character that could have been, so the argument goes, written with almost any other backstory to achieve the same result, resulting in a character that has that particular background for no other reason than, again going with how others are likely to present this argument, 2000s era sensibilities that perhaps would not have been period accurate.

Still, even accounting for the “inclusions”, to draw from the term for a diamond’s imperfections, this really is one of the stronger WWII historical fiction stories out there, and I’ve read a fair amount within that space. Yes, this is yet again France and in particular D-Day, but those tend to be the stories that get the most attention, both in the historical record and the overall zeitgeist. Overall, truly one of the better and stronger WWII historical fiction tales I’ve ever come across. Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details”, including an excerpt from the book, the book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer”

#BookReview: The Echo Of Old Books by Barbara Davis

Innovative Use Of Both Duology And Story-Within-A-Story. There is so much to like about this book, but I suspect that later reviews will hit all you need to know about just how strong at least one of the two romances here is – one is clearly one of those life-altering once-in-a-lifetime loves which we mostly see play out via two books, the other romance is a more contemporary (40 years ago anyway, which is still more recent than the 80 yrs ago for the first romance) tale of two people coming together via unusual circumstance. But it is truly the duology/ story-within-a-story structure that I want to highlight here, as this is what truly propels this book and makes it everything that it eventually becomes. I’d never seen this particular approach done – yes, there are other books with stories-within-stories, but this was truly the first time I’d ever encountered a duology done this way, and Davis manages to make all *three* books – the duology plus this actual book we’re actually reading “in real life” – truly compelling due to the nature of how she has crafted this. Simply superb, and truly, truly well executed. And yes, the actual romance aspects of this are well done, as are the heart-wrenching dramatics. You want a book for “Most Anticipated of 2023”? This very book had better be on that list. Very much recommended.

This review of The Echo Of Old Books by Barbara Davis was originally written on December 23, 2022.

#BookReview: The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel

Grief And Madness. One of the things I like about this particular book, and the way it parallels my own family’s life, is in showing how events during WWII can have generational impacts via creating madness – the older term for insanity, yet which feels like it applies more appropriately here – in some of the survivors of that war. Here, we see it even in two people who were far from soldiers, far from the front lines. They were simply mothers who had daughters at nearly the same time in the same city who happened to become friends… and then had that friendship tested in pretty horrific ways. But the varying types of madness we see here do a great job in showing how the war impacted different people differently, even people as connected as these two mothers were. Without giving too much away, we even see the horrors of the Holocaust a bit – and there again, we see survivors trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

All told this was one of those books where the gut punches land heavy – but early. The “big reveal” is, in fact, rather obvious *much* earlier than the explicit reveal, and yet the way this is done works within the story being told of the varying madnesses and how these survivors are trying to cope in any way they can. So while I can’t personally fault Harmel for this, I can see where other more stringent reviewers might. Even the near 400 page length works well here, never feeling bloated or too slow and instead simply packing in a *ton* of rich detail and events, many – even among the seemingly more insignificant in this tale – based on real world events and seemingly quite accurate. (The author’s note in the end reveals how one particular incident within the last few pages of the book is actually the author inserting her characters into that particular moment, but otherwise being pretty close to an actual nonfiction report on the incident in question.)

Overall a truly well done, beautifully layered tale of two beautifully broken women and the impacts their choices have across decades. Very much recommended.

This review of The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel was originally written on December 19, 2022.

#BookReview: Never Out Of Season by Rob Dunn

Interesting Yet Only Tangentially Related To Title. This is a book primarily about plant pathogens and the history of the study of plants and specifically their pathogens, mostly centering on the roughly 200 ish years between the beginnings of the Irish Potato Famine in the mid 19th century to the bleeding edge research being done by Dunn and other scientists in the later early 21st century. Dunn bemoans the fact that the food supply of the world basically comes down to a dozen or so key varieties of key species in the beginning… while later backdoor praising that very same thing as saving the world from certain pathogens, at least – as Dunn claims- “temporarily”. Overall the book, at least in the Audible form I consumed it in, was engaging and thought provoking, and despite being vaguely familiar with farming due to where and when I grew up, Dunn highlights quite a bit here that I was never aware of. Things that adventure authors like David Wood, Rick Chesler, or Matt Williams could use as inspiration for some of their stories – but also other real world events that could serve as inspiration to Soraya M. Lane and other WWII era historical fiction authors. Ultimately the book becomes quite a bit self-serving, highlighting work done by Dunn and his colleagues and friends in the years preceding writing the books. And yet, again at least in Audible form, there was nothing truly objective-ish wrong here to hang a star deduction on, and thus it maintains its 5* rating. Recommended.

This review of Never Out Of Season by Rob Dunn was originally written on November 28, 2022.

#BookReview: The London Girls by Soraya M. Lane

Yet Another Realistic Fiction Of WWII. Lane does a tremendous amount of research for all of her WWII historical novels, then takes licenses where needed to tell the story she is trying to tell within that setting, and this tale is no different. Yet again Lane manages to bring a spotlight to a particularly deadly role in the war, that of the female motorcycle dispatch riders in the UK -where in the author’s note Lane reveals that of the 303 women killed in the line of duty (of 100,000 serving), roughly one third of them were these very riders.

And yet, even in this realism we also get a remarkable sense of who these characters are and some of their all-too-real motivations, as is also typical of a Lane tale. You’re going to fall in love with these women and their men, and that makes the tragedies of war all too real for the reader as well.

The only modicum of anything remotely negative here is likely at least parts of the epilogue, where Lane falls into tropes all too common in romance books (which this could *maybe* qualify as, as well?)… but here again, given the events of the years immediately after the war… even this particular thing is more real than not, and thus contributes to the very “mostly accurate” depiction Lane strives for and achieves.

Ultimately this tale does exactly what Lane set out to do – highlight these women most have never really known about, and tell tales of their lives that are all too plausible in every respect. Very much recommended.

This review of The London Girls by Soraya M. Lane was originally written on October 25, 2022.