The book is set during WWII and the hero, Tom, is an engineer who is stationed overseas. He has a name everyone in the United States recognizes and links to his father's criminal activities, and because of it, he's never had a true friend.
The heroine, Mellie, is a flight nurse and was raised in the Philippines with her single father, a botanist. Because of her unusual upbringing she's uncomfortable with the social norms of females and has never had a true friend, either.
Both the hero and heroine are encouraged to participate in a letter exchange program, and because of the anonymity involved, they are able to open up with one another and share who they really are on the inside, for the first time. This leads to an anonymous romance. While the letters are going back and forth, both characters are dealing with very different circumstances in their own lives, but Sarah Sundin is able to weave both stories, and their growing love for one another, into a well crafted tale that comes together beautifully at the end.
Not only is this a great premise for a book, but Sarah's attention to historical detail,1940's culture (including some great movies of that time) and the intrigues of war, made this a hard book to put down.
My only criticism, if I have any, is that the beginning of the book is bogged down with numerous characters (because of the nature of the war) and it was hard to keep everyone straight at first, but eventually I was able to pick out the key players and had no trouble with it for the remainder of the book.
This is Sarah's fourth published novel, but the first one I've read, and I can say that if her other novels are written as well as this one, I will be a lifelong fan.
Available September 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
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What about you? Have you read a book by Sarah Sundin? Do you enjoy WWII era stories?
