Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

IN TIMES OF RAIN AND WAR by Camron Wright

May 16, 2021

From the publisher:

During World War II, an American soldier encounters a German woman living a secret life in bomb-blighted London.

In September of 1940, during the Blitz in London, Audrey Stocking is blending in with other civilians who are trying to survive the nightly bombings, but she has a secret. She’s not British; she’s German. Her fake passport and nearly perfect English allow her to blend in as she works hard to help evacuate British children into the countryside.

Audrey longs to reunite with her family in Hamburg, but her double life, the bombings, and the watchful British Military Intelligence have forced her to stay put. And then there are the paralyzing nightmares . . .

Lieutenant Wesley Bowers, an American soldier training with London’s Bomb Disposal Company 5, meets Audrey when an air raid leaves an unexploded bomb on the floor of her flat. She is attractive, intelligent, and compassionate, and there’s an immediate connection between them.

As they get to know each other, Wesley realizes Audrey is the one bright spot amid the war’s unending bleakness and constant threat of death. But will he still feel the same if he discovers the secrets she is hiding? Secrets even Audrey is unaware of?

In Times of Rain and War is a gripping and heartbreakingly beautiful story about the strength and resilience of the human heart and spirit, reminding us there is always hope in hard times.

This novel is a beautifully written story of love and war. Like most stories about war, it is a treatise of anti-war dialogue but does go quite a bit beyond that.

Lt. Wesley Bowers is an American that journeys to England in 1940, prior to the U.S. entering WWII. He joins a bomb disposal unit working in London and quickly learns that life expectancy for men that do the kind of work that he gets involved in is very low; that the average for these people is 10 weeks. He also joins the BDU (Bomb Disposal Unit) at a point that the Blitz has begun targeting London as the main point of the German air force’s raids.

Wes struggles to survive the horror he is involved in at the same time that he finds that the men attached to his unit have become like family to him with the obvious commonality of facing death on a constant basis due to the work they do.

Audrey Stocking is a young girl that has entered England illegally sent out from her home in Germany by her father who has arranged for her to flee what he felt was the coming horror of the Nazi party. The family was Jewish with all the downside that would create for them.

Audrey traveled to Switzerland with her aunt and from there the two women traveled to England. In order to make a living both work for a group that specializes in transporting children from London to temporary homes in the north of England which are beyond the war zone. Audrey’s problem beyond the basic one of being in the county illegally is that she suffers from flashbacks and nightmares that she cannot come to grips with.

Wes has a fiancée in the US, but when he and Audrey meet it generates a mutual attraction that quickly gives way to love. The story of a love that helps both people transcend the daily horror they live in is an extremely well done narrative with results that leave the reader with an emotional feeling not often encountered in a novel. Certainly instilling a desire to read future books by Wright and follow through on that.

5/2021 Paul Lane

IN TIMES OF RAIN AND WAR by Camron Wright. Shadow Mountain (April 6, 2021). ISBN: 978-1629728544. 312 pages.

Kindle

Audible

Comments Off on IN TIMES OF RAIN AND WAR by Camron Wright | Book Reviews, Fiction | Tagged: Historical | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

HER THREE LIVES by Cate Holahan

May 15, 2021

From the publisher:

Gaslight goes high-tech in USA Today bestselling author Cate Holahan’s new standalone thriller in which a family must determine who the real enemy is after a brutal home invasion breaks their trust in each other.

Her public life

Jade Thompson has it all. She’s an up-and-coming social media influencer, and she has a beautiful new home and a successful architect for a fiancé. But there’s trouble behind the scenes. To Greg’s children, his divorce from their mother and his new life can only mean a big mid-life crisis. To Jade, his suburban Connecticut upbringing isn’t an easy match with her Caribbean roots.

Her private life

A savage home invasion leaves Greg house-bound with a traumatic brain injury and glued to the live feeds from his ubiquitous security cameras. As the police investigate the crime and Greg’s frustration and rage grows, Jade begins to wonder what he may know about their attackers. And whether they are coming back.

Her secret life

As Greg watches Jade’s comings and goings, he becomes convinced that her behavior is suspicious and that she’s hiding a big secret. The more he sees, the more he wonders whether the break-in was really a random burglary. And whether he’s worth more to Jade if he were dead than alive.

PopSugar’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers Books of April 2021

Cate Holahan has a tremendous gift for bringing characters she utilizes in her novels to vivid life for her readers. In her current novel, she places her characters into a plot that is as twisty and turny as any I’ve ever had the pleasure to read, making this book into a grab hold adventure into sleepless nights.

Jade Thompson is a woman that has made a success of herself via the creation and building up an interesting blog involved in design details and sales of products in that area to an increasing number of interested readers. She has also just become engaged to Greg who is an extremely successful architect who has made himself wealthy via becoming involved with the design of big buildings. Greg is in the process of divorcing this wife of many years and has met and fallen in love with Jade. He has asked Jade to marry him with her accepting.

Greg has two adult children who are not too thrilled with their father becoming engaged to a woman that is very close in age to his daughter and seemingly leaving their mother. The plot thickens when one night Jade and Greg are subjected to a home invasion. Greg suffers a hit to his head by one of the two robbers using a blunt instrument while Jade is hit in the stomach. She has become pregnant and loses the baby as a result of the blow. She also is robbed of a very valuable ring she received as an engagement present.

Holahan takes her readers on a rollercoaster ride as besides Jade and Greg, Jade’s mother and Greg’s adult children get involved in throwing around the whys and wherefores of what was the cause of the home invasion if it had anything to do with an engagement that apparently all felt was too soon and ill advised. Believe me when I state that readers will become dizzy from the myriad of permutations and combinations involved. It will be an experience that will add to the enjoyment of the book and the expectation of reading future books by the author.

5/2021 Paul Lane

HER THREE LIVES by Cate Holahan. Grand Central Publishing (April 20, 2021). ISBN: 978-1538736340. 352 pages.