Book Reviews

Title: Rich Man's War Poor Man's Fight
Author: Daniel Thompson
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B005OAWJYQ

Rich Man's War - Poor Man's Fight, is the story of two Scot - Irish families who left Ireland for the promise of a better life in America. While accurately set in time and place, this is not a battle by battle account of Civil War history. It is the story of a determined people who were pressed into a war by a country who spurned their kind and used them as pawns so their wealthy sons could be kept out of harm's way. One family, a young man who hoped to use his family trade as a sword smith entered through the port of New York in 1862. New York was in the midst of the conscription riots as Abraham Lincoln's cabinet desperately fought to fill the ranks of an Army to hold the Union together. A second family left Dublin for New Orleans. They arrived as organizers tried to convince young Irish men that the South's fight for independence from the federal government is a struggle that the Irish should understand. Fate brings the young men together on opposing sides of a Virginia battlefield where they collapse in exhaustion and come to realize the irony of their meeting and the cruel circumstances that brought them together as enemies.

Title: Your Gift to Me
Author: Bonnie Bartel Latino, Bob Vale
Genre: Fiction/Romance
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B0087THD24

Set primarily in Hawaii, this Military SuperRomance celebrates the redemptive powers of love and laughter.

Nearly ten years after Emily Ann Meade’s husband died in a fiery Special Operations helicopter crash in the Gulf War, grief continues to follow her like a second skin shadow. Still single and emotionally guarded, she clings to her vow never to get involved with another man committed to a dangerous profession … until she meets charismatic F-16 Viper pilot, Colonel Ted Foley, in Hawaii. Although she is attracted to Ted, he is assigned to a fighter wing that has recently lost two pilots in unexplained air crashes.

Ted finds the elusive Emily to be like smoke--smoke that surrounds and envelopes him, but that he can't quite grasp. He is intrigued by the first woman who has made him feel alive since his wife died of breast cancer.

Allowing her mind to wander through fields of dreams on which she can't afford the emotional mortgage, Emily lowers her barriers and discovers Ted’s greatest virtue. He makes the ordinary feel sublime! Healing in shared confidences solidifies their relationship.

As Emily becomes the vivacious woman she was before her husband’s death devastated her spirit, her worst fear resurfaces. Ted’s squadron suffers a third mysterious F-16 crash. Terrified that his life could be in danger, and she will be left to suffer the emotional consequences, she pushes him away . . . again. Their relationship shatters.

Emily must find a path through her emotional minefields or risk never discovering that she is rejecting the only type of man to whom she is genuinely attracted . . . and a man whose life could be in danger!

Ultimately Ted and Emily discover that grief, like joy, is finite, but love is infinite.

Written from alternate he said/she said points of view, the captivating story will appeal to anyone, age eighteen to eighty, who requires both entertainment and substance in their leisure reading.

Title: Rich Man's War - Poor Man's Fight
Author: Daniel Thompson
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B005OAWJYQ

Rich Man's War - Poor Man's Fight, is the story of two Scot - Irish families who left Ireland for the promise of a better life in America. While accurately set in time and place, this is not a battle by battle account of Civil War history. It is the story of a determined people who were pressed into a war by a country who spurned their kind and used them as pawns so their wealthy sons could be kept out of harm's way. One family, a young man who hoped to use his family trade as a sword smith entered through the port of New York in 1862. New York was in the midst of the conscription riots as Abraham Lincoln's cabinet desperately fought to fill the ranks of an Army to hold the Union together. A second family left Dublin for New Orleans. They arrived as organizers tried to convince young Irish men that the South's fight for independence from the federal government is a struggle that the Irish should understand. Fate brings the young men together on opposing sides of a Virginia battlefield where they collapse in exhaustion and come to realize the irony of their meeting and the cruel circumstances that brought them together as enemies.

Title: Northern Colors
Author: Michael Eckers
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviwer: John Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B002KE62B0

Northern Colors is a historical fiction story of young Isaiah Weldon who enlists in the Second Minnesota Infantry during the American Civil War. His adventures, and those of his family at home, are described accurately without graphic violence or profane language. Through narrative, letters and journals the reader gains general knowledge of the war and the events taking place in Minnesota from 1862 through 1865. Isaiah becomes a color bearer for his regiment and is wounded during the advance on Atlanta. Recovering from his wound with the help of a young woman he has met and brought home, he returns in time to accompany General Sherman on the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign. At the same time, his family continues to face life in the North Star State without him. This book is a great read for late elementary youth through adult. Northern Colors is the cornerstone book in a series that will follow the Weldon family from the American Revolution through all the major wars and conflicts up to the present day.

Title: Marcia Gates: Angel of Bataan
Author: Melissa Bowersock
Genre: Non-Fiction Bioigraphy
Reviewer: Edward Kelly

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1460973194

Marcia Gates was an Army nurse and prisoner of war during WWll. As an "Angel of Bataan," she spent three years in a Japanese internment camp in the Philippines. This is her story, told through her letters and the newspaper clippings, photos and letters collected by her mother. Melissa Bowersock is the niece of Marcia Gates.