THE FAR REACHES by Homer Hickam, 2007.
I picked this up, drawn by the cover, read the flap and was intrigued. I'd certainly heard of Hickam before, but had never read any of his books, and World War II is not a period I'm that fond of. I'm glad I picked it up. Turns out that this title is actually the third book in the "Josh Thurlow Series", but the fact that I hadn't read the previous books did not make any difference in my enjoyment of this story. Hickam opens this entry with the horrific battle at Tarawa in 1943, and introduces the reader to the heroic Captain Josh Thurlow of Killakeet, North Carolina, his buddy Ready O'Neal, and the young Irish nun Sister Mary Kathleen Ryan, and others, amid scenes of blood and gore, horrendous violence and death, bodies floating or piled high on the beaches, blood in the water, men jumping out of barges only to be killed instantly by unending hails of bullets and so on. Reading this definitely gives a sense of war being total hell. Josh, predicting the outcome of the battle, joins in, and becomes involved with the Sister's attempt to escape. Afterward, Josh's nemesis, Colonel Montague Burr, lets Sister and her native "fella boys" take the unconscious Josh, Ready, and several other marines to the Forridge Islands ( the Far Reaches). The Sister, who has painful and horrible secrets of her own, wants help to carry out her own nearly impossible plan for getting the Japanese out of the islands. Colorful, action packed, some romance thrown in, full of adventure and lively characters and dialogue, it was a grand read. Entertaining, educational, and at times thrilling. Great storytelling and a good change-of-pace read for me.