THE POSTMISTRESS by Sarah Blake, 2010.

I found this to be a rather ho-hum novel. I enjoyed the writer's depictions of the bombings of London during 1940-41 and her descriptions of small town life on Cape Cod, Massachusetts during the pre-World War II era, but I found a lot of her writing to be just so-so, and the characters not all that compelling.The plot centers around three women: the postmistress of Franklin, Mass., Iris; Emma Fitch, the young and fragile wife of that small town's doctor, and Frankie Bard, a woman reporter in Europe who is trying to make Americans aware of what is happening overseas.These three had definite issues in their lives that they struggled to deal with, including pregnancy, midlife, workplace acceptance, loss, and emotional heartache. Parts of this were very good: the accident that befalls Emma's husband, the awfulness of the trainloads of refugees out of Germany and France, the horrific bombings at night in London, sirens blaring. But the story as a whole just didn't leave me feeling much for any of it. In the end, I don't think this book was worthy of all the hype it received.

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.