Jack Woodville London's Blog

Over the five day period surrounding Mothers’ Day 2012 my first novel, French Letters: Virginia’s War, rose to Number One on Amazon Kindle downloads in the category of war fiction, an astonishing compliment to an anti-war novel set on the home front of World War II in which the person whose fortunes and misfortunes are under the looking glass is a pregnant woman who may — or may not — be married to the father of the child she unexpectedly is expecting, a soldier away at the front.

Just as ‘My Goodness’ is that Virginia’s War rose to Number Eight in Amazon Kindle Historical Fiction.

Thank you very, very much for your support and encouragement. I sincerely hope you enjoy Virginia’s War and Virginia’s parallel story, Engaged in War, as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Jack

PS I am asked when the third book will be out? I am working on it every day. But, it won’t be out until it is good enough for you to read. Virginia deserves that much, and Will at least that much, and you deserve the very best I can do. I promise.

Jack

Romance is on my mind — today is my and Alice’s anniversary, and all I think about are words of love. For writers, that can be a lot to think about.

Writing dialogue is hard enough without having to explore the minefields and wedding chapels of romance. However, there is no greater source of conflict, nor a more satisfying read, than the story of women and men. So, what do they say, and how do they say it?

In a nutshell, dialogue should sound like conversations people might actually have, not set pieces in a battle. At the same time, it should not be trite or clichéd, but draw the reader into the conversation and still give color to the characters who speak. In addition, the descriptive scene should be as much a part of the conversation as the conversation is itself. Finally, and particularly in scenes involving romance, love, or intimacy, lovers who know what the other actually means when something is said are the equivalent of ‘train misses bus:’ there’s not much story there. Love is conflict — conflict with her, conflict with him, conflict within.

Let’s analyze fictitious episodes of a romantic encounter written by two of my favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway and Alan Furst. I have chosen almost mirrored stories, each involving people swept up in world war in the Mediterranean, about English nurses and the men who will be called on to risk everything.

In the first (Furst – cute, eh?), our lovers are together after having gone to a party at which they have learned that the war is coming very close to them and that he will have to go into the fighting. I quote from the book:

It as very late, not long until dawn, in Roxanne’s saggy bed at the Pension Bastasini. Tired—from too many people—and groggy — from too much wine, Zannis had intended to drop Roxanne off and go back to his apartment, but she’d insisted he come up for a drink, and one thing had led to another. Parties always aroused her, so she’d been avid, and that had had a powerful effect on him…. Zannis gazed idly at the red glow at the end of his cigarette.

“What went on with you and Elias?” she said.

“Nothing much.

“It looked like more than gossip.”

“Oh, his misspent youth.”

“He’s tried to make love to you?”

“Of course. To every woman he meets.”….

“Will you, I don’t know, will you watch him?”

“I doubt it. The British are our friends. In fact, the British are just about our only friends. I don’t know what he wants here, but I don’t think that he, I should say they, mean us harm.” Tired of the conversation, he lowered his head and brushed her nipple with his lips.

“Anyhow, you’re British, and you’re my friend.”

She didn’t answer.

Instead, a luxuriant stretch and then, down below, she moved.

From Spies of the Balkans, Alan Furst, (2010), p45.

In the second passage, by Hemingway, the couple meet in the gardens of a military hospital. I quote from the book:

The British hospital was a big villa built by Germans before the war. Miss Barkley was in the garden. Another nurse was with her. We saw their white uniforms through the trees and walked toward them. Rinaldi saluted. I saluted too but more moderately.

“How do you do?” Miss Barkley said. “You’re not an Italian, are you?”

“Oh, no.”

Rinaldi was talking with the other nurse. They were laughing.

“What an odd thing – to be in the Italian army.”

“It’s not really the army. It’s only the ambulance.”

“It’s very odd though. Why did you do it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”

“Oh, isn’t there? I was brought up to think there was.”

“That’s awfully nice.”

“Do we have to go on and talk this way?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s a relief. Isn’t it?”

“What is the stick?” I asked. Miss Barkley was quite tall. She wore what seemed to me to be a nurse’s uniform, was blonde and had a tawny skin and gray eyes. I thought she was very beautiful. She was carrying a thick rattan stick like a toy riding-crop, bound in leather.

“It belonged to a boy who was killed last year.”

“I’m awfully sorry.”

“He was a very nice boy. He was going to marry me and he was killed in the Somme.”

“It was a ghastly show.”

“Were you there?”

“No.”

“I’ve heard about it,” she said. “There’s not really any war of that sort down here. They sent me the little stick. His mother sent it to me. They returned it with his things.”

“Had you been engaged long?”

“Eight years. We grew up together.”

“And why didn’t you marry?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was a fool not to. I could have given him that, anyway. But I thought it would be bad for him.”

“I see.”

“Have you ever loved anyone?”

“No,” I said.

We sat down on a bench and I looked at her.

“You have beautiful hair,” I said.

“Do you like it?”

“Very much.”

“I was going to cut it all off when he died.”

“No.”

“I wanted to do something for him. You see I didn’t care about the other thing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted if I would have known. I would have married him or anything. I know all about it now. But then he wanted to go to war and I didn’t know.”

I did not say anything.

“I didn’t know anything then. I thought it would be worse for him. I thought perhaps he couldn’t stand it and then of course he was killed and that was the end of it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s the end of it.”

From A Farewell to Arms, Ermest Hemingway, (1929), pp. 18-19.

Before diving in to analyze how these two almost identical passages are different, consider what I and two colleagues debated until the wee hours a few days ago – there is no ‘one’ way to write, whether fiction, non-fiction, emails, fifth grade love notes, or football ‘x and o’ playbooks. The question, rather, is a matter of the writer knowing what it is that s/he wants to write. Having said that, let’s look at the process of these two dialogue passages and ask the same questions we’ve been asking all along, plus one or two more.

First, (there’s that pun again): what is different between the two? Furst’s description of the couple is clinical, not intimate, more about what they are doing than who they are. Roxanne is ‘aroused,’ ‘avid,’ and ‘effective.’ Zanni stares at a cigarette ember. By contrast, rather than write what the lovers do are what they are, Hemingway writes what the lovers feel , the self-doubt of saying one thing while thinking another, talking about walking sticks while sensing another’s hair, the color of eyes.

Second, both couples speak of a third person, a man who is not there. Why? It is a symbol of the most potent obstacle to the onset of love, the question whether there is someone else.

Furst dispenses with the obstacle by characters who are carnivores having sex in between talking about keeping an eye on Elias. Sex. Keep an eye on Elias. Sex. Who is Elias and, when you’re having sex, who cares?

Hemingway, on the other hand, places ‘the boy who was killed last year’ in the conversation as the someone else who might never go away — the ghost of that boy. Barkley says that she did not love him, to her regret, but she is not a woman who does fall in love. “…then of course he was killed and that was the end of it.” Henry will proceed, if he pursues Barkley, at the peril of having that boy in her heart forever.

Recall the last installment, in which we discussed Martina Lewyka writing of a father who has called his adult daughter to announce his planned marriage to a gold digger. That phone call was a complete story. Here, too, Furst’s dialogue passage is itself a story, divisible by three. There is a problem, the relation between Roxanne and Zannis, the conflict, and the resolution. Hemingway’s treatment is equally a self-contained story: his couple meets, they circle one another with suffocating pheromonic interest, and when she says ‘that was the end of it,’ the reader knows that was hardly the end of it.

An additional lesson is what such dialogue should contain. There are two parts.

One part is the spoken conversation. Here, Furst may fall short. “Anyhow, you’re British, and you’re my friend,” may be the worst foreplay I have ever read. Writers should write conversations that at least sound like conversations people would actually have. People who meet one another and are on heightened love alert cast about for something, anything, to talk about, as Hemingway had his lovers do: “What an odd thing- to be in the Italian army.” “What is the stick?” This was not a passage about his nationality or her stick.

The second part is the non-verbal language, descriptive text that weaves in and out of the quoted dialogue to portray what one of the speakers sees, does, or thinks, or to describe the scene. Zanni is in bed for sex; Roxanne is there for information. Henry’s voice may be asking Nurse Barkley about her stick but his mind is drowning in her height, the texture of her skin, the color of her eyes, all written in the same paragraph; he and Barkley are wading into the real pond.

In the end, well-written dialogue passages of romance, or intimacy, or something that looks like it, profit from what Furst and Hemingway both employed to great effect: the characters said one thing and did another. Like love, it looks like an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, and is flavored with non-sequiturs that make you curious enough to continue reading, and to practice the craft of writing it.

Time to come up for air. Breathe in. Breathe out. Romance is serious stuff.

Jack

On the second Sunday of this month we honor our mothers. On the last Monday we honor our fellow citizens who gave their lives in our military service. Few realize how much these two special days have much in common.

Our mental impression of trans-Atlantic voyages on luxury liners is formed by black and white movies of the 1930’s, images of wealthy socialites, escapes from the oppression of the Depression, throngs at the gangways cheering passengers crowded on deck. But, as the month of May takes hold, take a moment to re-focus on other images and reflections. There are unexpected connections between those voyages, the Civil War, the Great War (World War I), and the month of May.

Beginning in May, 1930, the Army Quartermaster Corps began to escort the first of some 6675 women on luxury liners to Paris. These were not just any women, however, nor were they ordinary luxury liners. Each of the women had, at one time or another, put a white flag with a blue star in their window, a custom begun in 1917 by an Army officer who had two sons on the front line in France during World War I. The blue star represented a son or husband in service in the war. But these particular women had an even more painful honor – they had covered the blue star with a gold star on learning of the death of their son or husband.

Memorial Day emerged from a proposed national day of reconciliation after the Civil War, a day to honor the sacrifices of men from the south as well as the north. Mother’s Day, however, was almost the opposite. It began in 1870 as a call to mothers to protest the futility of that war’s killing of their sons in the pursuit of political disagreements. It was organized by Julia Ward Howe, who only eight years earlier had composed the anthem Battle Hymn of the Republic to rally the North. From anyone’s perspective, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of young men were buried in a soldier’s grave far from home. While no one disagreed with a day of remembrance for them, women in particular wanted an end to war. War did not end, not then, nor on the Indian frontier or in Cuba or the Philippines.

Still, no one was prepared for what happened in World War I, when more than another one hundred thousand of their sons were cut down in battle. This time, however, the graves could not be reached, not by any ordinary widow or mother.

In March, 1929, the Army Quartermaster Corps proposed and the Congress enacted a bill to change that. Nestled between acts to build bridges and improve prisons, Public Law 1506 established a fund to pay for pilgrimages to American cemeteries in Europe for the mothers and widows of Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines buried there. The United States, even in the throes of the Depression, honored both Mothers Day and Memorial Day in a way never seen before or since – it took the mothers to visit their sons’ graves in France, a trans-Atlantic voyage beyond the means or hopes of all but the wealthiest of Americans.

The first Gold Star mothers sailed on the S.S. America on May 7, 1930. Every voyage departed from New York. For many of the mothers on board, the voyages duplicated their sons’ last voyage. The S.S. America had served as a troop ship in World War I, transporting some four thousand doughboys per crossing from New York to Brest, France, thirteen years before it began to take their mothers. For the next three years, American women of all races and social levels were escorted to France, often on ships that had been confiscated from Germany in 1917 and used as troopships. The pilgrims docked at Cherbourg and entrained for Paris where, according to Constance Potter, they were given rooms in the Hotel Imperator. Escorted by American officers, each woman was taken across northern France to the American cemetery where her son lay. There were no public ceremonies; each woman was escorted to her son’s grave and given a wreath. She could stay as long as she liked; there was no hurrying from place to place. In some instances the women also were taken to the fields of Chateau Thierry or Belleau Wood, where their boys had fallen, or to Compiegne, where the Armistice was signed.

The pilgrimages were not entirely without controversy. The widows and mothers of black troops traveled by decidedly reduced means and stayed in lesser hotels in what the government provided as separate but hardly equal arrangements. One mother died during the voyage. Another, when asked on arrival whether she would be agreeable to having a new room-mate at the hotel, told her French hosts that she didn’t care who they put in her room “as long as it isn’t a Frenchman.” The Quartermasters and embassy officials had a difficult time persuading some of the hotels to cook bacon and eggs for women who were accustomed to starting the day with more than strong coffee and a croissant. And, as today, a group of elected objectors took the government to task for funding the trips at all, saying the $850.00 per woman would have been better spent elsewhere.

The last sponsored voyage of the Gold Star mothers was completed aboard the S.S. Washington in August, 1933. However, the journeys of neither the vessels nor the mothers ended then. The S.S. Harding, the Roosevelt, and the Washington became troop ships in World War II. The S.S. Washington also had the honor of transporting American and neutral refugees from Europe to the United States in June, 1941, six months before the United States entered the war. One hundred eighty miles off the coast of Portugal it was stopped by a German submarine that signaled ‘ten minutes to abandon ship’ before being torpedoed, an act of war reminiscent of the Lusitania and Athenia attacks. The Washington stood fast, repeatedly signaling that it was an American ship and, after a tense hour, the submarine departed, radioing to Berlin that it had encountered an American liner and, ‘after the usual courtesies at sea, continued on its way.’

Gold Star mothers have not made their last pilgrimage. Between 2000 and 2011, a private association escorted Gold Star mothers to the battlefields in Viet Nam where their sons died. Nine Gold Star Mothers traveled to Sulaymania, Iraq, in October 2010. Today, Gold Star and Blue Star mothers support our service men and women in hospitals, hospices, and family care of all kinds.

This May, one hundred fifty years after the onset of the Civil War, we still salute the two special days of peace and remembrance born of that conflict. Mothers, all mothers, deserve our gratitude. Those mothers whose children died in our service deserve our highest praise and our efforts to respect their prayer for peace. And, in memory of those children, each of us must honor them with the respect and gratitude that every member of our grateful nation owes for their sacrifice. Mother’s Day and Memorial Day, together.

Jack Woodville London

_____________________________________

Jack Woodville London is the Author of the Year of the Military Writers Society of America for his novels Virginia’s War and Engaged in War.

He discovered during research for this article that the aunt he did not know, who had raised London’s orphaned father, had herself been a Gold Star pilgrim for a cousin no one talked about, she having voyaged to France to visit the grave of her son who died in the Second Battle of the Marne. Private Thomas Graves is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery near Romagne, France, Plot D, Row 34, Grave 26, where he was laid to rest after having been killed thirty-five days before the declaration of armistice on November 11, 1918.

Let’s do something new. Instead of more exhuastive book reviews, let’s post what’s on the nightstand. These are the books I am reading, just finished, or am about to read. And, since books are shared surprises, let us know what you’re reading too, and whether it should go on my nightstand.

Oh — the ratings. I have a lamp with a powersaving bulb in it. 100 watts is ‘stay awake and read.’ 20 watts is ‘the book will help you snooze, so turn out the light and go to sleep.’

Just Finished:

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell. Before Animal Farm and 1984, Orwell wrote the definitive book about the Spanish Civil War, from the trenches. Rating: 80 watts

Red Moon and High Summer, Herbert Kaufmann. A 1956 novel of growing up as a Tuareg in the Sahara. Now that they are revolting from Mali and storming Timbuktu, it is time to learn about this year’s desert uprising. Rating: 50 watts

Turning the Pages Now

Lawrence and the Arabs, by Robert Graves. Written in 1927 by one of the Great War’s finest authors and before T.E.Lawrence died in a motorcycle crash, this account of Lawrence of Arabia is astonishing reading some 85 years on when we look at Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East in conflict. Looks like it will keep me awake.

In the Queue:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell. My fourth Mitchell novel, and hope it is half as astonishing as the first three. Stay tuned.

That’s a good start — any more would reek of excess. Hope you enjoy this twist, and, please, let me know what you think I should be reading.

Jack

“Jack London really understands small town life, and has done an incredible amount of research so he could add details to make this story come to life. Waiting for the 3rd in the trilogy!”

“London has crafted an intriguing tale filled with rich details, fully fleshed characters and plenty of twists and turns to satisfy the reader who enjoys character focused historical fiction. From the prologue to last page the reader is kept turning the page to learn what will happen next.

Jack Woodville London’s French Letters: Engaged in War Normandy 1944, is the second book in the French Letters trilogy. Beginning with a distressed woman in the prologue; the reader begins to feel some of the stress washing over Shirley. The telephone call she has received stirs long quiet memories of a man named Will, a woman named Virginia and many years between then and now.

On board a landing ship loaded with tanks, guns and medical crews on the way across the English Channel; the narrative begins June, 1944, with an unheard discussion of the aerodynamics of a Duncan yo-yo in flight. The men on board the landing ship would be the first medics a wounded soldier would see when he got on the ramp. They would assess his condition and get him to a triage doctor.

Within a span of a few lines of text; the scene is set by a hardnosed major with a yen for revenge coupled to a God complex regarding real or imagined slights rendered by those under his command. Army Doctor, Will Hastings, Captain, has managed to get himself on the Major’s list. And, so has a young medic.

Will is soon enmeshed in the Normandy D-Day landings and the push to capture St. Lo, France. Cut off from Virginia Sullivan (book 1 of the series) and the incidents in progress at home; stresses of Will’s responsibilities caused by combat surgery under fire are heightened with losses of his brother, his friends, and his connection to home.
 London brings together a riveting, well written novel continuing the narrative of the home front taking place in a small Texas town on the pages of Virginia’s War as combat raged across the sea.

Engaged in War relates the chronicle of Captain Will Hastings and his experience as an Army surgeon on the European front both prior to and following the D-Day arrival of Allied troops.

Historically precise and specific to the events of the era presented in volume 1, Engaged in War is a tale delineating the strength of the will to survive despite the horror of combat, space, death of loved ones, and even uncertainty regarding the future. And, it is a tale delineating the power of home and caring despite the seeming impossibility of return to normalcy separating families past supposed snapping point.

Leaving home and sweethearts has long been a part of the lives of military personnel. London continues to hone his panache, forwarding a highly lucid and agreeable storyline. While not a war story per se; it is through Will Hastings readers are introduced to personal experiences of many of our own relatives; the WWII soldier serving in Europe during that tumultuous time. The return to supposed normalcy and home is not always easy.
The turmoil Hastings faces torn between saving lives along with trying to learn more concerning his brother’s death are portrayed with all the angst, stress and anxiety as might be expected. As a doctor, Hastings is dedicated to saving as many lives as feasible. However, the constraints placed on a doctor in time of war often cause the practice of medicine to be quite different than that taking place in a civilian venue.

London has crafted an intriguing tale filled with rich details, fully fleshed characters and plenty of twists and turns to satisfy the reader who enjoys character focused historical fiction. From the prologue to last page the reader is kept turning the page to learn what will happen next.”

“I’ve never really been a “war-time” reader and I’m pretty positive this is my first war-related novel. In school I sort of avoided all History classes if I could get away with it. I’m not too sure why I did that now that I think about it. Set in WWII, Engaged In War is the second in a trilogy and focuses on Will Hastings, a young army doctor. I usually don’t like to step out of order when it comes to books, however the blurb caught my attention and I ended up accepting the request for review. The French Letter Trilogy, from what I gather, takes place in the same time period but are told from a different character’s perspective. So I don’t think it bothers me that much that I went out of order.

It took me quite a while to become comfortable with the style of writing. I had a tough time figuring out who was the main character in the beginning and then I had an equally tough time keeping the secondary characters straight. I felt there was a lack of character depth in the secondary characters which caused me to get confused on who was who. But I suppose that’s understandable because the focus of the story was on the effect this war had on the decisions people had to make in order to survive and live with themselves. War is hard on everyone, those personally involved and those “sitting on the sidelines.” Will makes tough decisions every day when treating soldiers and their specific wounds. But Will must also question his morals when faced with a court martial after being severely wounded.

I found that I liked the unique personality of Will although I couldn’t quite grasp him entirely. After arriving on the beach in Normandy during the D-Day landings, Will’s story really takes off. He’s focused on finding out what really happened to his brother who is presumed dead from a glider crash. And yet despite that strong pull towards his brother’s fate, Will still has this passion and drive to do his duty as an army doctor. His will, determination, and stamina make him a very likable character. His lack of contact with his girlfriend, Virginia Sullivan, back in his hometown of Tierra, Texas, causes a strain on Will’s connection with his “normal” or former life. This leads to an easier attraction to a local farm girl, Geraldine. His relationship with her symbolizes the connection between two people that crosses language and culture barriers since Will is and English speaking American and Geraldine is French and speaks very, very little English. Despite this, they are able to come together in a desperate time to fill a void that the War has caused them both.

It seems to me that this novel was very well researched because I actually caught something about WWII and the D-Day landings on my local public broadcasting station while reading it. The show on TV even went into some detail about some of the French countryside as well that was also a big part of the novel. Because, like I mentioned earlier, I skipped as much History in school as I could so I’m pretty clueless about most of the wars that have happened in the past. But I’m fairly confident in saying that the author did a very good job in his research.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel. It did take me longer than I expected to finish it but don’t let that deter you from giving it a try. I’m definitely interested in reading the first novel,Virginia’s War, because it goes into detail about what happens with Virginia and things “back home.” I’m also interested in seeing what book three will be about.”


“French Letters: Engaged in War has to be the first WWII book I have read in a long time. This second novel in the trilogy by Jack Woodville London pretty much takes place in the French countryside during the attempted takeover of St. Lo. The main character is Will Hastings, a combat surgeon, who is not attached to any unit but is treating wounded men.

His brother is missing, presumed dead and Will is trying to find out what exactly happened to him. He is conflicted with his feelings for a woman (Virginia) back home and the growing love he has for a local French woman. The story goes back and forth between the battlefield and events and people left behind at home and people he meets along the way, locals and fellow soldiers. The book has all the elements of a well-researched story, with accurate historical details about one of the most devastating of wars. Not necessarily a “war” story but more on how the war affects people and the actions that they take that they would not normally take. In times of war, people do things they may not do otherwise and they find that they do what they need to in order to survive.

I did not read the first novel but I would recommend reading the first novel in the series,Virginia’s War then read this one. I did enjoy this book and look forward to the third one to see what happens.”

“Jack Woodville London’s French Letters: Engaged in War Normandy 1944, is the second book in the French Letters trilogy.

Beginning with a distressed woman in the prologue; the reader begins to feel some of the stress washing over Shirley. The telephone call she has received stirs long quiet memories of a man named Will, a woman named Virginia and many years between then and now.

On board a landing ship loaded with tanks, guns and medical crews on the way across the English Channel; the narrative begins June, 1944, with an unheard discussion of the aerodynamics of a Duncan yo-yo in flight.

The men on board the landing ship would be the first medics a wounded soldier would see when he got on the ramp. They would assess his condition and get him to a triage doctor.

Within a span of a few lines of text; the scene is set by a hardnosed major with a yen for revenge coupled to a God complex regarding real or imagined slights rendered by those under his command. Army Doctor, Will Hastings, Captain, has managed to get himself on the Major’s list. And, so has a young medic.

Will is soon enmeshed in the Normandy D-Day landings and the push to capture St. Lo, France. Cut off from Virginia Sullivan (book 1 of the series) and the incidents in progress at home; stresses of Will’s responsibilities caused by combat surgery under fire are heightened with losses of his brother, his friends, and his connection to home.

London brings together a riveting, well written novel continuing the narrative of the home front taking place in a small Texas town on the pages of Virginia’s War as combat raged across the sea.

Engaged in War relates the chronicle of Captain Will Hastings and his experience as an Army surgeon on the European front both prior to and following the D-Day arrival of Allied troops.

Historically precise and specific to the events of the era presented in volume 1, Engaged in War is a tale delineating the strength of the will to survive despite the horror of combat, space, death of loved ones, and even uncertainty regarding the future. And, it is a tale delineating the power of home and caring despite the seeming impossibility of return to normalcy separating families past supposed snapping point.

Leaving home and sweethearts has long been a part of the lives of military personnel. London continues to hone his panache, forwarding a highly lucid and agreeable storyline. While not a war story per se; it is through Will Hastings readers are introduced to personal experiences of many of our own relatives; the WWII soldier serving in Europe during that tumultuous time. The return to supposed normalcy and home is not always easy.

The turmoil Hastings faces torn between saving lives along with trying to learn more concerning his brother’s death are portrayed with all the angst, stress and anxiety as might be expected. As a doctor, Hastings is dedicated to saving as many lives as feasible. However, the constraints placed on a doctor in time of war often cause the practice of medicine to be quite different than that taking place in a civilian venue.

Writer London has crafted an intriguing tale filled with rich details, fully fleshed characters and plenty of twists and turns to satisfy the reader who enjoys character focused historical fiction. From the prologue to last page the reader is kept turning the page to learn what will happen next.

Happy to recommend Jack Woodville London’s French Letters: Engaged in War.”


“Dear Mr. London,

You promised us romance in the second book in the French Letters trilogy and you delivered. You promised us characters who are “Engaged in War” as the Allies liberate France and you delivered. You promised us answers to some of the questions posed in the first book “Virginia’s War” and again, they are here. But now I’m going to go crazy waiting on the last book to answer the new questions and issues in this book!

Captain Will Hastings has a Major pissed off at him for no good reason other than the Major, Halliburton by name, is an asshole. It takes a little while for the full story to be told but poor Will and a medic get shafted, and almost killed numerous times, as they struggle to obey the murderous order the Major gives which sends them onto the beaches at Normandy. But survive they do and then catch a break as the people at MedPers find Halliburton’s bogus write ups of Will to be hilarious.

Now Will is stationed with the medical team near St. Lo piecing together the men of the US Army as they attempt to break out of the hedgerows of Normandy. He’s also trying to discover if his older pilot brother, Peter, is really dead as reported by the Army, dealing with the French civilians trying to survive the liberation, finally reading some letters from home – which frankly have him totally confused – and also falling in love. However, the fallout from Major Halliburton’s last screw up just might haunt Will all across France and into Belgium while the after effects of what went on in Texas still await him at home.

While there is a sweet and gently developed love story here, I think this book will be more for people who love “Band of Brothers,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Catch 22,” or “Patton.” It’s more men at war and the medical teams trying to save them under fire, as well as some hilarious glimpses of the ways generals think and act, than a romance novel. That being said, and since I love the aforementioned books/movies, I devoured it in a day.

I loved the humor displayed as Will meets the men of the 261st medical unit for the first time as they frantically work in the captured pillbox as well as the “Halliburton’s a bit crazy” reassignment scene. One important rule Halliburton dismisses is definitely don’t piss off the Army clerks who handle the paperwork. The little people can make you or break you. And while some officers are total morons, others have learned the wisdom of not inquiring too closely into how their men get things done.

I ended up feeling a great deal of sympathy for the French trying to survive the artillery bombardments and being freed from the control of the Germans. Yet at the same time, I feel for the US personnel being besieged with requests for medicine and carpenters to rebuild the towns while also rolling my eyes as the idiotic SNAFUs which prevent Will from assisting the civilians as he waits for the legal situation to be cleared up. As for the legal stuff, though the bombshell Will ultimately drops during the court-martial sequence is a doozy, the lead up to get to it does tend to drag just a touch.

You left some things hanging at the end of “Virginia’s War” which do get resolved here. What happened to the crooked sheriff of Tierra, how Virginia survives after the baby is born, what the draft board does with her PoS brother and how the realization that the end of the war is in sight begins to affect their small town. The present day prologue still presents some mysteries: who is this man who is asking questions around town and who did Shirley marry? But what I really am burning to know is what happened in St. Lo? What did Will not see in the cemetery and who is that baby? I also get the feeling that Will wishes he’d looked in Peter’s footlocker before sending it back home as it seems to hold a lot of answers to the questions which came to me as I read the book.

So again, good job on this book. It kept me riveted to Will’s tale of survival and finding that perfect someone – even if they can barely communicate with words. I was happy to get some answers to earlier questions and am now impatient to read what’s to come next. I hope the wait won’t be too long.”