Some Of My July Reading

The Women by Kristin Hannah. Published 2024

It is 1965, the middle of the Vietnam War and twenty year old Frances 'Frankie' McGrath is a nursing student, the only daughter of traditional parents. She has grown up on the idyllic Californian Island of Coronado. At a party held to send off her brother to Vietnam to be a Hero for his father a friend tells her that Girls can be Heroes too.

On a whim Frankie signs up and is shipped out to Vietnam, just a few weeks after her parents hear that her brother has been lost in action.

Nothing has prepared her for the fear and conditions of working in the heat and dust and horrors of a war zone, but with the help of two nurses who have been there a while she settles in and works to become the best nurse possible.

She has always been a 'good' girl but falls in love with one of the helicopter pilots and all good intentions soon disappear.

When her tour ends she flies home only to find that The Vietnam war is causing disagreements in California and across the US, her father had been too embarrassed to tell anyone where she'd been and no one believes that any women had ever been to war. Trying to get help for her nightmares is impossible in this world of denial, as is fitting back into a normal hospital.

Thankfully those two friends from Vietnam are able to help where no one else can, but there is sadness and tragedy still to come.

A really well written book, based around stories that the women who were there were able to pass on to the author. The women were finally recognised for their bravery years after the war ended.

Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon. Published in 2011

I was a late comer to this author but this is the 29th book of hers of now read in her Commissario Guido Brunetti series, only 4 left and three of those are either here or on order from the library. I just need to work out which is the one book I've yet to reserve. Luckily these have been reprinted again recently so the library have many more than they had when I first discovered these stories of the Brunetti family in Venice.

An old woman's body has been found in her very ordinary apartment. Her neighbour finds the woman after calling in to collect her post on return from a holiday. There seems to be some signs of force on the woman but Brunetti's boss would like this declared a simple accident and when the medical examiner rules she has died from a heart attack that should be the end. But Brunetti isn't sure and soon things left unsaid by people he speaks too have him doing some research on this not so simple old woman.

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The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear published in 2024.

The 18th and very last book in what has been an excellent series that started in 2003

1945 and the Second World War is over, but for many of the people in London things have got worse rather than better. When Investigator and psychologist Maisie Dobbs is drawn in to find out about the group of youngsters squatting in an empty mansion along with a seriously ill demobbed soldier, she needs help from all her friends and family to get to the truth. Mysteries hidden from her in the past about the life and death of her first husband in an aircraft accident also need to be resolved so that Maisie can retire to look after her American husband and adopted daughter. 

All these were read and finished while I had the other eye on tennis on TV! - Multi tasking!

Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday about the very poor growing season it's been for some things but I've eaten raspberries everyday for a month so it's not all bad.

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