Band of Sisters
During the height of World War I, a contingent of idealistic young college women decided to make a difference. Based upon an inspiring true story, Band of Sisters follows a handful of Smith College alumnae who travel to France in the summer of 1917 to lend aid and assistance to the devastated villages and destitute people left in the wake of a brutal war. When they pack up for the journey of a lifetime, the Smith women unwittingly lug along old baggage that sometimes threatens their fragile bonds in a foreign and frightening environment.
The handful of women volunteers, including two doctors, made up the initial “Smith College Relief Unit” whose sole mission sought to relieve the unending misery of women and children behind the front lines along the Somme. While a work of historical fiction, this is nevertheless based upon thousands of letters, reports, journal entries, photographs, and other essential archival material Willig researched to bring the story to life. From the unit’s base of operations in the partially burnt ruins of an old chateau, to the many road trips and social service calls made via hand-assembled rickety trucks to surrounding villages, Willig populates this engrossing tale with the touching and often heart-pounding accomplishments of these intrepid women—with a keen sense of humor that readers will delight in. Seen through the eyes of Emmie Van Alden and Kate Moran, fast friends from Smith days who still have unspoken hurts to work through, it is also a timeless tale of female relationships and the ineffable, lasting connections women create with one another—ties that often creak and bend but become unbreakable through shared survival in desperate times.
Willig is a New York Times bestselling author, and Band of Sisters promises to be another bullet propelling the historical fiction genre to the top of everyone’s 2021 to-be-read list.
