Friday Book Pick: ON DISTANT SHORES by Sarah Sundin

I don’t know about where you live, but here in Oregon, fall has definitely, um… fallen. And with our gloomy, rainy weather, nothing cheers me up like cracking open a good book. (Do books really crack?)

This week, I’m recommending On Distant Shores by one of my all-time favorite authors, Sarah Sundin. I’ve devoured every one of Sarah’s WWII romances (five books, now) because she has a gift for pulling you into her characters’ lives until you feel as if you are walking in their shoes. Her current series, Wings of the Nightingale, tells the stories of three flight nurses, the brave women responsible for evacuating wounded soldiers to safety. Moving from place to place around the Mediterranean, Sundin’s descriptions bring the locations to life and make the war deeply personal.

Lt. Georgiana Taylor has everything she could want. A comfortable boyfriend back home, a loving family, and a challenging job as a flight nurse. But in July 1943, Georgie’s cozy life gets decidedly more complicated when she meets pharmacist Sgt. John Hutchinson.  

Hutch resents the lack of respect he gets as a noncommissioned serviceman and hates how the war keeps him from his fiancée. While Georgie and Hutch share a love of the starry night skies over Sicily, their lives back home are falling apart. Can they weather the hurt and betrayal? Or will the pressures of war destroy the fragile connection they’ve made?

I instantly fell in love with Georgie, sympathizing with how her bubbly personality covered a lack of confidence in her abilities. The author’s personal background in pharmacy created a distinctive air of reality to Hutch, as she layered in details of his work alongside the tender romance developing between the characters. (I have to confess–after having struggled through writing believable scenes for the pharmacist hero in my novel, Mistaken–I was envious of Sarah’s knowledge. Her pharmacy background shines in On Distant Shores!)

On Distant Shores is the second book in the Flight of the Nightingale series, but there is no need to
read the stories in order. I was impressed how this book overlapped the first book (With Every Letter), so you actually experience several events from different characters’ perspectives. That was a fun bonus for the reader, and makes reading the books out-of-sequence a non-issue.

I’m looking forward to reading the third book of the series, In Perfect Time, when it releases in August, 2014. After two different peeks at Kay Jacobsen’s life, through the eyes of Georgie and Mellie, I can’t wait to dive into Kay’s story.

In the meantime, if you haven’t read Sarah Sundin’s original series, the Wings of Glory, I highly recommend it. I recently noticed ChristianBook.com is offering the three book series as a combined package. So, if you like devouring a good series one-after-the-other, this might be the best way to do so!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book for free from Revell for the purpose of review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Happy reading!

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