An amazing read.

 This is the 4th book I've read by Kristin Hannah and have loved everyone.  This is a powerful story of friendship, marriage, being a parent and the effect of war on families.

The characters become so real to you, as you read through the story. Jolene and Tami are best friends who met when they both became  soldiers in the US National Guard. They are very close, even lived next door to each when they married. 

Jolene and husband, Michael appear to have a perfect marriage, but things start to go wrong when she is deployed to Iraq.. You're swept along in their lives and of their children and the way it is written, the dialogue just flows. 

The story was fast paced full of emotional and I had tears in my eyes as I read, Seeing a war through the eyes of a woman, the experiences, and the story of the horror of war gave me, a fresh look of a modern war; of things I've never known. 

I kept thinking how could women face the conditions they found themselves in and how amazingly proud their families must be; Jolene a pilot of a Black Hawk helicopter.

While some people might think the children weren't perfect, Betsy 12 years of age especially had some problems, but that's how families are.

I couldn't put this book down, it tore at my heart strings and I wanted to scream at some of the characters, to say, wake up look at what you have, be grateful and be 'nice.' 

The Author had spoken to members of the Military in her research,  so there was a truthfulness about the horrors of modern warfare and how it was used in the Iraq war. Frightening that it happened and how soldiers have such courage and to whom we have so much to be grateful for.

This story will stay with me for quite a while, a roller coaster of love, war, families, hardship, loneliness, suffering  and the friendship of two women.

I hope you'll read this book and enjoy it as much as I have.

Chrisxx