The Girls in Navy Blue
One of the pitfalls of the dual-timeline novel is that one story often overshadows the other. Happily, that is not the case for The Girls in Navy Blue. Rickloff has managed to create two compelling timelines, one in the spring of 1918 and one in 1968.
The later plotline begins when Peggy Whitby, after a devastating loss, flees her broken marriage and big city life to a beach cottage outside Norfolk, Virginia, near one of the country’s largest naval bases. She’s inherited the cottage from an estranged aunt and intends to sell it even though it’s in serious disrepair. While a handsome handyman works on the house, Peggy receives mysterious postcards dated from 1918 and soon discovers the cottage holds secrets to her own past. A cantankerous neighbor also knows more than he’s willing to tell about three young “yeomanettes” in the U.S. Navy who shared the cottage in World War I. One of these is Peggy’s aunt, Blanche, a brash suffragist determined to look up to no man. She lives with Marjory, whose German last name makes her the object of derision among the rank and file, and Viv, who is on the run from an abusive homelife. When Viv’s past reappears with a literal vengeance, the young women’s lives are forever changed.
This is an immersive read, and the writing is often gorgeous, such as when Rickloff describes how August slides in “like molten gold, slow and hot and cloudless.” Although somewhat long-winded, this story with its mystery, romance and history of the navy’s first enlisted women as well as the vivid descriptions of abuse suffered by German Americans will enthrall many readers.
