Notes of Love and War
In Baltimore, 1942, Audrey and her sister Rae are both helping at the USO, dancing with the departing troops, when Audrey meets Charlie, who becomes her pen pal. Rae meets Victor, who is not a soldier, and is quickly engaged. Audrey has her suspicions about the broody and controlling Victor. She also has dreams of the future which do not include marriage, and she becomes a music critic for the local paper, taking the place of a man who has gone off to war. While covering the music scene in Baltimore, Audrey continues her letters with Charlie. Then a suspicious plot comes to her attention. What will she do?
This book is a romance at first, and then slowly builds to a mystery/thriller towards the end. The romance between Audrey and Charlie is well written, and much of it plays out in letters, which is very true to life, as many marriages resulted in that time from the letters between soldiers and the women writing to them. Audrey’s determination to build a life for herself beyond marriage is a foreshadowing of things to come in the real world, as women learned during WWII that they could do well in the workforce, and by the 1960s more women were working outside the home than ever before.
There is one event in the story that I feel is taken less seriously than it should be, almost shockingly so, but overall, this is a strong tale of love, mystery, and suspense during World War II. Recommended for fans of romance, mysteries, and WWII fiction.
