Monday, July 9, 2012

The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope




From Amazon - After a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, he is coming home to the wife and young daughters he adores. He’s up for promotion and his ex-Army grandfather and father couldn’t be prouder. The Rileys are united in support of Dan’s passion for his career.
But are they really? His wife, Alexa, has been offered a good teaching job she can’t take because the Army may move the family at any time. Her daughter Isabel hates her boarding school—the only good educational option for Army families—and starts running away. And Dan spends all his time on the base, unable to break the strong bonds forged with his friends in battle. Soon everyone who knows the Rileys is trying to help them save their marriage, but it’s up to Alexa to decide if she can sacrifice her needs and those of her family to support Dan’s commitment to his work.


The Soldier's Wife is about a wife waiting for her husband to get home from Afghanistan. While he is gone, she struggles with her daughter and her own hopes and dreams.  While I empathize with those who wait for loved ones in the military, their problems are much like those of civilians.  Teenagers have problems, marriages have ups and downs and sometimes one decision can have a huge impact on everything else.  


Joanna Trollope handles the material with subtly and compassion.  The reader finds themselves torn between wanting Alexa to get the teaching job she desperately wants and for Dan with his commitment to his country.  Relationships can be like a tightrope, either tenuous or stable, and Trollope does an excellent job of creating that bond.  If you enjoy reading about family, military life or just enjoy a good story, pick up The Soldier's Wife this summer!




Joanna Trollope has been writing fiction for more than 30 years. She is the author of seventeen highly acclaimed bestselling novels including Daughters-in-Law, The Other Family, The Rector’s Wife, A Village Affair, Other People’s Children, The Choir, and Marrying the Mistress. She was awarded the OBE in the 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honors List for services to literature, and is the current chair of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. She lives in England.   http://www.joannatrollope.com/





*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

1 comment:

The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.

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