String of Pearls

September 1, 2009
Helen Conroy has lost her London home to the blitz and her husband to a younger woman when the Americans set up camp on the fields surrounding her fathers house. As war-blasted England changes with the infusion of Americans, Helen finds herself reluctantly changing as well, due to Captain Simon Johnson, who is billeted with her family. Bitter after her husband leaves, Helen, the mother of a teenager and a foster Jewish son, fights the growing attraction she feels toward Simon, a New York lawyer who joined the army after Pearl Harbor. He yearns to join the real fight, if only the army will let him. Instead he has been working in intelligence, first in South America, and now is employed to help strengthen British-American relationships and to root out German sympathizers and spies. His investigation leads him to Helens family, and he knows his mission will compromise their budding relationship. Swindells delivers a sensitive love story filled with self-sacrificing characters who epitomize the brightness of the human spirit even under the darkness of war.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)