From the bestselling author of Wives of War comes a harrowing tale of four brave young nurses whose lives change forever in the wake of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.When Grace, April, and Poppy join the US Army Nurse Corps, they see it as little more than an adventure, one made all the better by their first station: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Joined at the hip, idealistic Grace, exuberant Poppy, … Grace, exuberant Poppy, and brave but haunted April frolic in the sun, attending parties, flirting with the handsome soldiers, and becoming fast friends with seasoned nurse Eva. Like the Hawaiian sun, their future seems warm and bright—until the infamous morning of December 7.
Within just a few horrifying hours, their sparkling hopes turn to black rubble and ash. Now embroiled in a war they never could have imagined, they must decide what truly matters to them and face grief as they never have before. Death may await them—but so do hope and purpose. In the midst of the carnage, can they find happiness and learn to fight not just for their country’s honor but for themselves?
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For me, a great book is when the author can bring her characters to life right from the pages. When he/she can bring their reader into their world and make you feel as if you are right there, dealing with all the emotions and experiences that the characters are.
Ms. Lane has once again done that for me. I felt as if I was a nurse fighting alongside Grace, Eva and April. We know about what happened to the men who were fighting but history doesn’t lean towards educating us about all the other people who fought; even though this is a work of fiction, the research and attention detail that Ms. Lane puts into her books, I know that her stories could easily read as non-fiction….as a diary of you will.
Another fantastic addition to the historical fiction genre.
Reviewed by: Dana D.
Starts Out Feeling Like The Movie, Becomes So Much More. Through the opening third of this book or so, when our central characters are at Pearl Harbor, it is very hard to break away from comparing the scenes here to the Ben Affleck / Kate Beckinsale movie from the turn of the Millenium. Which isn’t an overly bad thing – this reader loved that movie and it made a fair amount at the box office to boot.
And then we get to Dec 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. (Though I do wish Lane had included that particular phrase when showing some of Roosevelt’s speech the next day.)
At the actual attack, Lane does a superb job of getting us into the heads of these particular characters as the events and aftermath are unfolding. It is here that she truly sepatates her tale from the movie, and it is at this point that the reader never really thinks about the movie again until sitting down to write the review.
To go much in depth at all with the plot beyond this is to veer close to spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that for those that survive Dec 7, the book continues with the efforts to further support the war, this time in the Africa Campaign. Superb writing here again, though there *is* a rape scene that some may want to be aware of going into this. But Lane does an excellent job of expanding our scope in this section to see not just the soldiers and nurses, but the townspeople they are working among.
Overall maybe my one complaint here is that the ending is perhaps a bit too tidy, particularly after doing such an amazing job of showing the various horrors of war from the small and personal to the grand and international. Still, very much a recommended book.
RIVETING!
THE GIRLS OF PEARL HARBOR by Soraya M. Lane is riveting! Three young nurses (Grace, April & Poppy) join the US Army Nurse Corps and quickly befriend another seasoned nurse, Eva. They all join for different reasons but their first station is in beautiful Hawaii. They are enjoying all the tropical paradise has to offer until the infamous morning of December 7 when the whole world turned upside down. In an instant, life as the world has known it, changed completely!! The horrors these four women would face & endure would break most people. Yet, they remained and they grew from each close encounter with death, with each close encounter with critically injured people – soldiers, townspeople (young children as well as adults & senior adults) & each close encounter with their own feelings and emotions. They learn what true love is not but even in the midst of all the horrors of war they are able to learn what true love (lifetime love) really means. I was provided an ARC of this book by Lake Union Publishing & NetGalley. The opinions expressed are completely my own and without influence.