Tomorrow Is for the Brave
While war looms on the horizon in 1939, Violet St. Croix, a young woman with a passion for race cars, is engaged to be married to a controlling heel. As someone who has been manipulated all her life by a domineering father and a hapless, drunken mother, this seems the most natural step in her life. Among her social set, she has no allies except for one free-thinking aristocratic woman who recognizes what Violet can’t see: her engagement is a farce.
Violet is a heroine worth cheering for. Instead of following the primrose path that her social station affords her, she changes course, ends her engagement (no spoiler here), and volunteers to be a nurse for the Red Cross where she encounters “George,” a woman from a family of fishers who becomes her best friend. Violet’s skillset as a nurse is practically nonexistent. She can’t stand the sight of blood and finds she gets attached to patients who die. But her skills as an automobile driver and mechanic provide her a means for making a difference, and she goes to work with the French Foreign Legion as a driver. When Violet suspects there may be a Nazi spy in her unit, she knows she can’t trust anyone—especially those who are closest to her.
A class-crossing romance raises the stakes in this compelling, suspense-filled story, which is based on the experiences of a real-life woman driver who served with the Free French Brigade at Bir Hakeim. The Allied forces were there to protect the Suez Canal when they were attacked by Germans. Readers will undoubtedly find this and other aspects of World War II history explored in this book fascinating. I certainly did.
