Three Shoeboxes: A Novel by Steven Manchester

Three Shoeboxes: A Novel. Steven Manchester. Fiction Studio Books. Copyright June, 2018. pb. 262 pp.; ASIN #: Bo7BN465JD.  .

Jen and Mack are celebrating their 15^th wedding anniversary, and it’s clear they are still very much in love.  They love their three children as well and Mack knows how to be friend but more important mentor to their growing up.  On that special day of celebrating their relationship, they see an accident and Mack’s world spins totally out of control.  All of a sudden, he finds his chest tightening, his head aching, and feeling unable to catch a breath, along with sweats and a racing heart.  He ignores it initially but when it reoccurs several times, he goes to get help at the hospital.  There some insensitive nurses confirm behind the screen that he’s having panic attacks; they treat it like no big deal.  But it’s a very big, big deal that continues and even escalates.

Mack will eventually get help but not before his personality undergoes a dramatic change borne of fear and he winds up making his wife and children dread to be around him because they fear his drunken and sober rages.  Jen realizes she needs to protect her children and so she takes appropriate legal action.  Mack is at risk for losing his job.  So many losses but Mack finally surrenders and begins the process of healing he so desperately needs through help for his PTSD, alcoholism, and panic attacks.

No more about the plot which readers will find very intense.  What is remarkable about this brutally honest story is the expression of support and growth evident in the letters that Mack writes to his children, later to his wife, and those of his wife – all written but not sent until the perfect moment. Manchester’s ability to depict the deepest emotions realistically and poignantly is noteworthy.

One would like to hope this is a rare account but most of us know it’s not.  Whether the cause is war or a horrible event one experiences but represses, PTSD is an all too real, horrific state that can make or break a person unless one receives professional help.  Faith is easy until one enters an unbelievable state of hell and the road back or forward is wonderfully presented in this memorable, compassionate account.  Highly recommended – read it and pass it on to others.  Recognizing the symptoms is half of the healing process.  Once again, finely crafted, Steven Manchester!

How to Walk Away: A Novel by Katherine Center

How to Walk Away: A Novel. Katherine Center. Creativia – St. Martin’s Press. Copyright May 2018, hb.. 320 pp.; ISBN #: 9781250149060. 

Margaret Jacobson is living a charmed life.  She works hard in school, is highly athletic and is soon to be engaged to the perfect guy, Chip.  Chip is confident and passionate about flying and one night before he takes his final exam to be licensed, he insists on Margaret flying with him.  That turns out to be the turning point in Margaret’s perfect life.  After an accidental flight, Margaret is severely injured and debilitated with an inability to move her legs, walk or anything else she had dreamed of doing in her now non-existent future!

One can see where this narrative is going but it doesn’t erase the reader’s total engagement with how Margaret’s world changes and the dynamic people around her who enable her survival.  First there is the enigmatic physical therapist, Ian, who is a tough piece of metal perfect for Margaret.  Then there is her estranged sister, Kit, who returns and turns out to be just the right amount of jokes, food, commiseration, and inspiration for Margaret to get back into life and new dreams and visions for the future. It also turns out that Kit had disappeared out of love and not hate and lies.

Chip, the perfect guy, doesn’t cope well with what has happened to his fiancé.  In fact, he is so riddled with guilt and shame that he falls apart.  How will that complicate issues? 

Trauma is a life-changer! How easy to write these words because most of us can’t possibly and fully imagine such changes in our life story?  Katherine Center has got it right – so right that the plot and how these people’s lives intertwine in this initial nightmare is credible and endearing. 

How to Walk Away is a more than apt title for readers to grasp by the end of this remarkable, realistic and engaging story of truly heroic growth and change!  So nicely done, Katherine Center!

Send Down the Rain: A Novel by Charles Martin

Send Down the Rain: A Novel. Charles Martin. Harper Collins Publishing. Copyright May 2018. E-Book. 352 pp.; ISBN: 9780718084769. 

Allie waits for her second husband to come home for dinner.  He’s a trucker who spends most of his time on the road but he and Allie seem happy in their new life in Cape San Blas. That complacent lull in life proceeding smoothly is about to be sheared apart, literally and figuratively.  But tragedy in the form of falling asleep and losing control of the massive truck changed everything, a massive fireball as the truck hit immense rocks on the side of a road and is obliterated beyond recognition.  Death tears apart Allie’s world!

Joseph (Jo Jo) Brooks has returned from a devastating time in Vietnam and wants nothing but to return to a life of normalcy.  So he settles into a cabin and is happy to work out his memory-driven demons.  He’s making progress but is still far from knowing normalcy.  A dramatically quiet meeting changes his world when he meets Allie and her two young children lost and wandering in the woods near his cabin.  They get to know each other and very gradually begin to care for each other. 

While he is helping her return to Florida to remaining family, a shocking truth comes to their attention and the rest of the story is a dramatic revelation indeed. All of this happens while Allie helps Joseph heal his way through nightmares and the PTSD that still looms large in his daily life.

The change in Allie’s life is tough to handle and it is Joseph who guides her through the journey to a satisfying end.  Sometimes life’s twists and turns are the tough road that makes a person grow the most, although one wouldn’t want to be part of this process. Although it may strike most readers as contrived, the story is still worth the reading, replete with high emotions and challenges!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone. Kristin Hannah. St. Martin’s Press. February 2018. 448 pp. ISBN #: 9780312577230.

Leni Allbright’s father, Ernt, is a Vietnam War veteran who returns from the war with PTSD that gradually threatens Leni and her mother.  He sees everyone as a threat, can’t keep a job, drinks too much and repeats the cycle of paranoia and violence toward his wife, Cora. 

A dream arises for Ernt, to get away from the influence of government and rich people that smothers the lives of those who yearn to live a free, unencumbered life.  Ernt sees Alaska as the land that can enable the family to start a new life.  From this point onward, we see an amazing juxtaposition of what life could be and what life is.  The reader also yearns for the dream to become reality.  It will do so but not until events escalate to a crescendo of beauty and horror. 

For Lena falls in love with Alaska, its gorgeous scenery depicted in descriptions that make the reader want to live there and its feisty, strong residents who support each other in good and hard times. Ernt seems happy for a brief period of time but then succumbs to his fears. 

No spoilers here but suffice to say that after more brutality than one person can bear, Cora commits a startling act that will change their future forever.  Leni will complete, yet change, the cycle of love, forgiveness and honesty, returning to call Alaska “home.” 

Kristin Hannah is a very talented writer who deserves more public acknowledgment and praise.  The pace of this complicated plot is exquisitely crafted, mixing love for one’s environment with the need to deal with veteran post-war issues that shake and threaten the solidarity of a united community.  Stunning historical fiction that is highly recommended.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone. Kristin Hannah. St. Martin’s Press. February 2018. 448 pp. ISBN #: 9780312577230. 

Leni Allbright’s father, Ernt, is a Vietnam War veteran who returns from the war with PTSD that gradually threatens Leni and her mother.  He sees everyone as a threat, can’t keep a job, drinks too much and repeats the cycle of paranoia and violence toward his wife, Cora. 

A dream arises for Ernt, to get away from the influence of government and rich people that smothers the lives of those who yearn to live a free, unencumbered life.  Ernt sees Alaska as the land that can enable the family to start a new life.  From this point onward, we see an amazing juxtaposition of what life could be and what life is.  The reader also yearns for the dream to become reality.  It will do so but not until events escalate to a crescendo of beauty and horror. 

For Lena falls in love with Alaska, its gorgeous scenery depicted in descriptions that make the reader want to live there and its feisty, strong residents who support each other in good and hard times. Ernt seems happy for a brief period of time but then succumbs to his fears. 

No spoilers here but suffice to say that after more brutality than one person can bear, Cora commits a startling act that will change their future forever.  Leni will complete, yet change, the cycle of love, forgiveness and honesty, returning to call Alaska “home.” 

Kristin Hannah is a very talented writer who deserves more public acknowledgment and praise.  The pace of this complicated plot is exquisitely crafted, mixing love for one’s environment with the need to deal with veteran post-war issues that shake and threaten the solidarity of a united community.  Stunning historical fiction that is highly recommended.

Casualties: A Novel by Elizabeth Marro

Casualties: A Novel.  Elizabeth Marro. Penguin Group (USA).  February 2016. 368 pp.  ISBN#: 9780425283462.

Ruth Nolan is an executive in a military defense contractor company.  She’s successful and her biggest worry is her son, Robbie, who is unsure about his future.  Ruth, although truly well-intentioned, is a super-nag!  She doesn’t mean to but can’t seem to control her need to control Robbie’s every step.  She tells him she loves him but Robbie can’t quite feel that through the incessant directions and plans she’s plotting for his life.  So Robbie makes a major decision and carries it out without letting his mother know.  He joins the Marines.  Ruth’s reaction is double-edged.  On the one hand she isn’t worried at all about him now that he’s made plans but the other truly caring side knows he will constantly be in grave danger!  It’s the nightmare military Moms live through on a daily basis.

Meanwhile trouble is brewing at work, big trouble! Without providing a spoiler, it turns out that promises made to military defenders and their families have been ignored to the point where it has become a public scandal.  When Robbie finally returns from serving two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s a different person.  He reaches out first to other relatives, without telling his mother.  When he does appear, Ruth is caught up in a volatile situation at work and after several more attempts Robbie gives up and leaves with an apology note left behind.

This is the story of Ruth’s awakening.  The loss of her son traumatizes her into paying attention to war, the emotional and mental effect of military service on those who serve, the lack of financial, mental and emotional support of the government for those who fight in its name, her own company’s negligence that is far more devastating than just statistics and mistakes indicate. 

We are told, “War is hell.”  However, this is a tale that must be told as numerous men and women return from war broken, forgotten and unsupported.  The questions Ruth asks are so real that it’s painful to read them.  To move beyond reading and to actively make a difference are Ruth’s incentives to the public.  Quietly telling the truth and “being there” in whatever way one responds will make all the difference in the world.  “Thank you for your service” just isn’t enough!  Thanks to Elizabeth Marro for telling it like it is!

Meadowlands by Elizabeth Jeffrey

Meadowlands.  Elizabeth Jeffrey. Severn House Publishers. April 2015. 224 pp.  ISBN#: 9780727884695.

Here’s another story about the ups and downs of WWI centered in the Barsham family.  They are aristocrats who cannot remain immune from the hardships and horrors to come, although Lady Adelaide does nothing but complain about how inconvenienced she is by losing staff and not having someone to fawn on her every wish.  Sir George Barsham is a Minister of Parliament who uses any excuse to be away from home.  The Barsham children all agree to “do their part” with James off to fight in the military, Millie to drive an ambulance to transport the wounded and dying, and Gina who starts a soup kitchen for the wives and children of soldiers who are off in Flanders fighting for King and country.

So what makes this novel different from the hundreds of other stories that have memorialized the causes and effects of this devastating war?  The first lies in the fact that England did everything possible to woo every male into fighting in Flanders but failed to take care of their spouses and children.  No salary or even part of a salary was sent to spouses and the families of wounded men received no recompense for their part in serving in the war.  The result was devastating poverty and Gina becomes not only soup kitchen director but also advocate for the needs of these present or former military families.

The second concerns the quiet but awful custom of committing pregnant young ladies into houses of insanity, followed by having to give up their babies and forever live in the deplorable conditions of their home.  Cruelty and ill treatment are described with disarming clarity.

The upshot is that this so-called “war to end all wars” had devastating physical, mental and emotional results that bear telling and remembering.  Elizabeth Jeffrey does so with sensitivity, accuracy and passion! There is so much more than what is described above which makes delightful reading! Well done historical fiction, indeed!

When She Came Home by Drusilla Campbell

When She Came Home. Drusilla Campbell. Grand Central Publishing. April 2013. 336 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9781455510351.

Frankie Byrne Tennyson is the daughter of a retired Marine Brigadier General and her life as well as the General’s wife have been all-military.  There’s no room for weakness and Frankie is out for a challenge from family and her husband when she is so stunned by 911 and the death of children on the planes that were attacked that she decides to enlist to do battle in Afghanistan or wherever required.  Her father, however, makes sure she is not put in harm’s way after her initial training.  Later however she signs up for another tour and does get to serve in Iraq, even if her job is only to create a new school rather than do battle.  But she is witness to unspeakable things which will later come up in as certain facts and issues come to the public light. 

When Frankie returns, she’s definitely not the same person she was, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and that her going and returning have also seriously affected her daughter, Glory.  The latter has questions galore, none of which Frankie wants to answer as she is definitely in need of professional help herself. But the General’s family have been well-trained as “perfect” Marines.  That basically means that psychological help is off limits as it would, if exposed, put an indelible mark on one’s career chart and worse than that display an inability to cope. 

The father’s secret is, however, that at one time he was coping no better than his daughter.  All of these characters must move through their days displaying more and more dysfunction until there will be no denial of the need for help.   It’s either that or someone will be bearing the brunt of the unconscious raging and invisible battle wounds everyone is denying.

This is such a timely issue that must not be covered over or denied, and Drusilla Campbell handles the problem with all its nuances and direct consequences with aplomb and admirable grace.  Rather than the expected maudlin quality, Frankie and her family are the epitome of what thousands of individuals and families are experiencing after returning from one or several tours of military service in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Kudos to you Ms. Campbell for writing a realistic novel about what unfortunately is today not one iota of fiction!  While it may gloss the surface of the issue, it’s definitely worth the read!