Nightingale

Can you picture it?

It's 1945 and the United States is at war.

Soldiers are fighting, bleeding, dying. Families at home are praying for their sons, grandsons, brothers, nephews, boyfriends.

All Germans are considered Nazi, regardless of where they were born. Even Americans who look German are ridiculed. And those who went back to the home country at the wrong time? They got drafted into the German army, fighting against their homeland, America. Many cannot stand what Hitler is doing, and yet if they flee, they will be shot.

Back home, nurses are caring for the wounded as they return. They know what is happening oversees; they see the limbs lost, the men suffering. They are friends with others who have lost loved ones in the war.





This is the setting for Nightingale. Only, Esther Lange isn't pining for her fiancée, fighting oversees. She doesn't actually love him. But since they have a child together, she figures they really should get married. One day, she receives a letter from another soldier, informing her that Linus is dead. She writes back to the soldier, asking how he died. Soon Esther and Peter begin corresponding back and forth. Once Esther finds out that Peter is a German American, unwillingly fighting on the wrong side, she wonders if things could really work out between them.

This was a very enjoyable book. In that time in history, if a girl got pregnant out of wedlock, the boy did the right thing and married her. But what happened when the girl didn't want to marry him? Susan May Warren addresses this question in a book that I recommend to anyone that likes historical fiction.

-------------------------------
I received this complementary book from Christian Review of Books in return for my honest review.