Trying out a new series today! Going to try to highlight one author a month who I am a completest or nearly a completest on (meaning, I've read all of their books or nearly all). When I find an author I like I tend to latch on and read everything new they write, there are so many authors whose new books are just automatically added to my TBR, almost entirely independent of whatever the book is about. Then there are the authors that I go back and and read all their back list (I have a handful of those I am considering doing that on since I seem to be short on released contemporary fiction to read right now!). Like all things on this blog, we'll see how this goes!
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, links for
which are included within this post, at no additional cost to you.
Thanks for helping support this blog! Of course, utilize the library
or shop used or from an independent bookstore, if you prefer!
Like most books I read, I don't remember how this one came to me. I first read Red Sky Over Hawaii almost exactly a year ago. There is a very good chance someone else logged it on Goodreads and I was intrigued by Hawaii and then hooked when I saw that it dealt with the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attacks and life on the islands. You all, Pearl Harbor is in my top 10 movies and I watch it every December. A big reason we went to Oahu when we went to Hawaii is that I wanted to visit the Arizona Memorial (but also see Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach, wasn't all war related) (And yes, Hawaii trip is a flex but it was pre-kids which is less of a flex, and the one big trip I insisted on before kids...and then kids took their dear sweet time.)
So, naturally, I was very interested in how the Hawaiian Islands (not yet a state) coped with the attack, especially the civilians. Life got scary and hard and very quickly everything changed.
In Red Sky Over Hawaii, the protagonist has just come back to the Big Island before the attacks when she is then forced into hiding at her father's secret house up in the mountains. That's all well and good but hiding with her she also has a Japanese Man who lived on Hawaii for years, the man's son, as well as two young German girls. Quite the hodgepodge of people. It's mostly fine (besides the house not being finished, missing an outside wall or two) until a detainment camp is put in down the road. Having the military that close is not a comfort.
I was interested in the story, the stakes were very real (for fictional people) and I sympathized with their plight.
Next up (for me) was Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers, another book set shortly after the attacks and also on the Big Island. This protagonist, Violet, was still reeling from her husband's disappearance a year previous and what their daughter may or may not know about it. To pass the time and make some money, she and some friends open a pie stand (I've read so many books about pie lately, I really want pie every single time) to mostly sell to soldiers training for a secret mission nearby. Despite her husband's unknown location, Violet makes friends with one of the soldiers. There is Christmas celebrating and a lion in the house. (I forget all the details on the lion but I reference it in my review and I remember it making me rather nervous. IT'S A LION.) Again, real stakes, people that felt pretty fleshed out, and a dreamy location.
It is just November 1941 when The Lieutenant's Nurse, Eva, makes the crossing across the Pacific to be a nurse on Oahu. Eva was trying to escape those Michigan winters as well as a relationship gone sour and Hawaii seems like a great place to do that. Except, then the attack. I wrote in my review that this was my favorite of the three I had read so far even though at this distance, 9+ months, the details melt together. Obviously being a nurse on Oahu in December 2941 would be a stressful and hard job. She had met and befriended a lieutenant on the Pacific crossing and now has to figure out who to trust and how much of her past to reveal. I liked the setting change in this one and how close the attacks seemed since Eva was on the same island. Plus, I think the romance was the most appealing to me.
And then, finally, late last summer I read Radar Girls which was recently released. The title sums it up, girls (young women, really) are trained in how to read and guide pilots with the new radar technology, thus freeing up more men to do the actual fighting. Daisy would rather ride horses than deal with radars but she had a problem related to her previous employer (and I believe a missing horse) and therefore radar reading is about her only hope of employment on Oahu. I've read many World War II novels about women who stepped up and got. things. done. while so many of the men were off fighting. Working with this new radar system was tough and challenging and really important work in the Pacific.
I enjoyed all of these books, really liked immersing myself in the Hawaiian setting, especially in the winter it's a dreamy place to think of, except maybe not during wartime. They all contained some romance but also kept it pretty PG and chaste. There was adventure and in some cases delicious sounding food. There were really real stakes of people trying to stay alive in a war zone. It humanized a part of the war that I hadn't thought much about, beyond the Pearl Harbor movie but also in a new location since I had read few other novels set in that time and in that place.
I read all of these since COVID invaded our lives (if not physically, at least mentally) and it made the stress of that seem a bit less mild compared to living on an island that felt like it could be under attack at any moment. The world will never be without problems and nothing quite like some very different problems from whatever we are currently facing to put ours into perspective. With a side of some of the most gorgeous scenery on this planet and some fun romances. I will keep reading what Sara Ackerman writes!
No comments:
Post a Comment