Many thanks to Sarah Hardy for inviting me to participate in this blog tour for:

A Letter From Pearl Harbor @annastuartbooks @bookuture @sarahhardy681 @absltmom

My review

This lovely story told in two timelines, one at the dawn of America’s was fostered upon us by the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the other a story of two women, Robyn and Ashley Harris sisters, Who were greatly influenced by their grandmother, Ginny McAllister.

Ginny was a definite free spirit and became a pilot in a time when women certainly did not fit into that role. She was living in Hawaii with her beloved brother, Jack, enjoying the life of this tropical paradise, when all hell breaks loose on December, 7, 1941. In the ensuing battle that rages, she witnesses colossal destruction and the loss of one so very dear to her. She and her fellow women pilots are determined to do what they can to allay the war effort and follow through with courage and determination.

We are given the backstory of Ginny in dribs and drabs due to a treasure hunt she sets up for her granddaughters prior to her death. The granddaughters are devastated at the loss of their grandmother, but have a few surprises to learn about a grandmother they thought they knew. Both women learn about courage, about determination, about facing up to responsibility. For Ashley, confined to a wheelchair due to a cycling accident, she finds it within herself to once again enter the competitive world she once loved. For Robyn, she finds that although loving someone hurts, it is well worth the risk involved to be enamored with someone.

Through the use of mostly alternate chapters, we delve into the grit of the ladies both now and then. We find ourselves rooting for the granddaughters, adapting to change and loss. This well-done story is one to add if you are fond of strong women, who never let others stand in their way. Resiliency in the face of tragedy is an ongoing theme, and the voice of carrying on is prevalent in the story.

Thank you to Anna Stuart, Bookouture, Sarah Hardy and NetGalley for providing an advanced copy of this based on true events story.

and here’s the author:

I wanted to be an author from the moment I could pick up a pen and was writing boarding-school novels by the age of nine. I made the early mistake of thinking I ought to get a ‘proper job’ and went into Factory Planning – a career that gave me some wonderful experiences, amazing friends and even a fantastic husband, but didn’t offer much creative scope. So when I stopped to have children I took the chance to start the ‘improper job’ of writing. During the baby years I wrote in the brief gaps provided by sleeps, playschools and obliging grandparents, publishing short stories and serials in all the women’s magazines.

But my ultimate aim was to write longer fiction and several years ago I published a series of successful historical novels under the pseudonym Joanna Courtney. I will continue to publish under that name but am delighted, as Anna Stuart, to also be able to write contemporary fiction. Bonnie and Stan is a true to life romance set in both the present day and sixties Liverpool and Four Minutes to Save a Life is a domestic drama about how small acts of kindness might just change the world!