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TRIAL AND TRIBULATION

A NOVEL OF WORLD WAR II

From the Breaking Point series , Vol. 4

A smart and gripping portrait of the many facets of conflict.

A military strategist helps shape a plan that results in her estranged pilot husband flying a perilous mission in Rhodes’ World War II novel.

This fourth book in the Breaking Point series continues the story of Eleanor Shaux, who works in Great Britain’s Allied planning and intelligence services, and her Royal Air Force wing commander spouse, Johnnie. The novel opens in 1942 with Johnnie in Australia, touring aircraft factories; people there hold him in awe, as he fought in the famed Battle of Britain. Eleanor, meanwhile, is a confidante of U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In a push to roll back Axis forces in Europe, strategist Eleanor is charged with devising a way to fatally weaken the German economy, and this involves the development of a strategic bombing campaign. Johnnie returns to England to test new weapons, but his perception of the war is changing; he’s come to see it as “organized killing on a grand scale.” Soon, he’s tasked with a risky flight that his wife approved, and she worries if her spouse, with whom she has a fraught relationship, will make it home alive. Military aircraft buffs will delight in the detail that Rhodes supplies regarding technical specifications: “Mosquitos had four cannons and four machineguns in the nose, all packed tightly together and firing straight forward along their axis….” The author is equally capable of eloquently communicating the emotional difficulties in Eleanor and Johnnie’s marriage: “Instead of all the other things that married couples do, they just went to bed to escape from the rest of the world.” Some descriptive passages prove a bit heavy-handed: “Someone dropped a pencil, and it sounded like a boulder.” Still, the intricate storyline and Rhodes’ enviable knowledge of military history successfully keep the narrative moving. A section in which the author clarifies which events actually occurred allows readers to easily distinguish fact from fiction. Overall, this is a clever novel that ably moves between the politics of Whitehall and the white-knuckle ride of aerial combat while also offering an unconventional love story.

A smart and gripping portrait of the many facets of conflict.

Pub Date: June 6, 2023

ISBN: 9781735373645

Page Count: 300

Publisher: Roundel House

Review Posted Online: May 8, 2023

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HAPPY PLACE

A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

Exes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation.

Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple—until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand. They’ve been part of the same boisterous friend group since college, and they know that their breakup will devastate the others and make things more than a little awkward. So they keep it a secret from their friends and families—in fact, Harriet barely even admits it to herself, focusing instead on her grueling hours as a surgical resident. She’s ready for a vacation at her happy place—the Maine cottage she and her friends visit every summer. But (surprise!) Wyn is there too, and he and Harriet have to share a (very romantic) room and a bed. Telling the truth about their breakup is out of the question, because the cottage is up for sale, and this is the group’s last hurrah. Determined to make sure everyone has the perfect last trip, Harriet and Wyn resolve to fake their relationship for the week. The problem with this plan, of course, is that Harriet still has major feelings for Wyn—feelings that only get stronger as they pretend to be blissfully in love. As always, Henry’s dialogue is sparkling and the banter between characters is snappy and hilarious. Wyn and Harriet’s relationship, shown both in the past and the present, feels achingly real. Their breakup, as well as their complicated relationships with their own families, adds a twinge of melancholy, as do the relatable growing pains of a group of friends whose lives are taking them in different directions.

A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.

Pub Date: April 25, 2023

ISBN: 9780593441275

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Berkley

Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023

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THE BOOK CLUB FOR TROUBLESOME WOMEN

A sugarcoated take on midcentury suburbia.

A lively and unabashedly sentimental novel examines the impact of feminism on four upper-middle-class white women in a suburb of Washington, D.C., in 1963.

Transplanted Ohioan Margaret Ryan—married to an accountant, raising three young children, and decidedly at loose ends—decides to recruit a few other housewives to form a book club. She’s thinking A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but a new friend, artistic Charlotte Gustafson, suggests Betty Friedan’s brand-new The Feminine Mystique. They’re joined by young Bitsy Cobb, who aspired to be a veterinarian but married one instead, and Vivian Buschetti, a former Army nurse now pregnant with her seventh child. The Bettys, as they christen themselves, decide to meet monthly to read feminist books, and with their encouragement of each other, their lives begin to change: Margaret starts writing a column for a women’s magazine; Viv goes back to work as a nurse; Charlotte and Bitsy face up to problems with demanding and philandering husbands and find new careers of their own. The story takes in real-life figures like the Washington Post’s Katharine Graham and touches on many of the tumultuous political events of 1963. Bostwick treats her characters with generosity and a heavy dose of wish-fulfillment, taking satisfying revenge on the wicked and solving longstanding problems with a few well-placed words, even showing empathy for the more well-meaning of the husbands. As historical fiction, the novel is hampered by its rosy optimism, but its take on the many micro- and macroaggressions experienced by women of the era is sound and eye-opening. Although Friedan might raise an eyebrow at the use her book’s been put to, readers will cheer for Bostwick’s spunky characters.

A sugarcoated take on midcentury suburbia.

Pub Date: April 22, 2025

ISBN: 9781400344741

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Harper Muse

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025

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