When Forever's Over is a coming of age tale by author J. Alan Johnson. Set during the 1960s in East Tennessee, USA, two mountain town boys make the journey through high school, becoming young men during one of the most turbulent periods of modern American...

Set against the backdrop of a complex WWII environment in South Africa, War Serenade by Jill Wallace follows a delightful romance that is as thrilling as it is beautifully written. The pilot had once been an Italian opera singer. Now a pilot, Pietro almost loses...

Who Are You, Trudy Herman? by B.E. Beck is a YA story set during World War II. It’s 1943. To Trudy, a young girl about to become a teenager, the war has no meaning. All she is interested in is boys, friends, and schoolwork. All...

In his novel Where Summer Strives, Thomas Thornburg takes us on a journey to a working class neighbourhood of a Midwestern city, towards the end of the Second World War, where social and racial divides are very much still the norm. When a wealthy, educated,...

The first tragedy in Morning Dove’s life was the death of her parents from smallpox, a devastating disease for Native Americans brought by the white man. Morning Dove, a twenty-year-old South Cheyenne maiden, and her eighteen-year-old brother, Black Beaver, were raised by the tribal chief...

Wehr Wolff Castle by B Bentley Summers is a terrific read and a great entry in the Wehr Wolff Chronicles, set against a powerful historical background with the rise of Nazi Germany. Hagen Messer is an American soldier who specializes in tracking, working with the...

I hesitated before picking up this book, not having read anything from this author, but then I was surprised, seduced by the writing, and found myself immersed in a post-war narrative that melds art, daily life just after the Second World War, the history of...

A family tragedy rips a young girl from her quiet life on a farm in Michigan, pre-World War II. For years, she refuses to speak and then she meets the butcher’s son. Together they build a world for themselves, each a haven for the...

The eclectic Wrath and Ruin (A Chilling Anthology) by C.W. Briar starts with Escape from Wrath and Ruin, in which a young, amnesiac protagonist in a strange wasteland learns that deception is what he should fear most, not beasts nor a ruthless hunter. This is...

If, like me, you’re of Polish descent, with parents or grandparents who immigrated to the US, Canada or Australia after World War 2, you will most likely relate to James Sniechowski’s family in Worship of Hollow Gods. The author’s family settled in Detroit and brought...