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Summary
Summary
Lt. Mellie Blake is a nurse serving in the 802nd Medical Squadron, Air Evacuation, Transport. As part of a morale building program, she reluctantly enters into an anonymous correspondence with Lt. Tom MacGilliver, an officer in the 908th Engineer Aviation Battalion in North Africa. As their letters crisscross the Atlantic, Tom and Mellie develop a unique friendship despite not knowing the other's true identity. When both are transferred to Algeria, the two are poised to meet face to face for the first time. Will they overcome their fears and reveal who they are, or will their future be held hostage to their past? And can they learn to trust God and embrace the gift of love he offers them?
Combining excellent research and attention to detail with a flair for romance, Sarah Sundin brings to life the perilous challenges of WWII aviation, nursing, and true love.
Author Notes
Sarah Sundin is the author of A Distant Melody , A Memory Between Us , and Blue Skies Tomorrow . In 2011, A Memory Between Us was a finalist in the Inspirational Reader's Choice Awards and Sarah received the Writer of the Year Award at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. A graduate of UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy, she works on-call as a hospital pharmacist. During WWII, her grandfather served as a pharmacist's mate (medic) in the Navy and her great-uncle flew with the US Eighth Air Force in England. Sarah lives in California with her husband and three children.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Historical romance specialist Sundin (Wings of Glory series) opens another WWII-era series with a well-researched and absorbing tale of two Army specialists whose pen-pal relationship becomes a lifeline. Lt. Philomela (Mellie) Blake is a nurse who has difficulty fitting in socially. Lt. Tom MacGilliver is an engineer and the son of a killer whose fear of his own parentage has made him a mild-mannered man, not an asset in wartime conditions. The two meet via a morale-building pen-pal arrangement that keeps them anonymous, and confide in one another their secrets and present-day problems. When the two meet after both are transferred to Algeria as the Allied forces press through North Africa, the epistolary relationship and the real one collide. Sundin has a such a gift for compelling scenes and details (jump rope rhymes, nicknames, conversational banter) that she can be forgiven for some significant improbabilities (MacGilliver's pet dog) that seem to be rooted more in the stereotypes of WWII movies than the logic of the story. WWII-era fans won't be able to put it down. Agent: Rachel Kent, Books & Such Literary Agency (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Mellie Blake, a pioneering WWII flight nurse, does not fit in. Try as she might, her childhood spent in the jungle with her father has made it impossible for her to make friends, much less draw the affection of a good man. So when a chance to correspond anonymously with an army engineer comes along, Mellie proceeds, but with trepidation. Lieutenant Tom MacGilliver also values this anonymous correspondence because he feels unable to shake the stigma of his father's criminal sins and, like Mellie, assumes that for him, love, marriage, and family are not possible. When these two misfits find each other amid the ravages of war, a true love story begins to unfold, requiring both of them to let down their guard and learn to trust in ways that neither has been able to before. By telling this redemptive wartime tale of love primarily from the perspective of a young flight nurse, talented historical-fiction and romance author Sundin (Blue Skies Tomorrow, 2011) offers a unique perspective on the lives of military women during this time period.--Ponder, Elizabeth Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
As Lt. Mellie Blake begins her flight training program, she is coerced into joining a moral-building letter writing program to soldiers overseas. The only thing that makes her feel better about it is knowing that her identity (and his) will be kept secret. Stationed in North Africa, Lt. Tom MacGilliver is also glad that his correspondence will give him a false identity. Over time, as the two write to each other, they get to know almost everything about each other. Then, they are both transferred to Algeria, where they will finally meet. VERDICT This heartwarming, richly detailed Word War II historical should appeal to fans of Judith Pella. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.