Kristin Hannah, a bestselling author with 18 prior titles in print, won me into her large following with her newest book, "Home Front." This particular book brings in the well-researched issue of PTSD, its effects on the soldiers fighting the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What Hannah does differently than many other authors is place a wife, a mother, a woman in harm's way. Jolene flies a Blackhawk helicopter.

Her twelve-year old daughter, Betsy, and her four (soon to be five) year old, Lulu, do not understand why a mother would leave her children to go to war. Kids at school make Betsy's life more miserable with their taunting and frequent bullying. Lulu adapts more readily with the love of her paternal grandmother. Although Betsy seems somewhat childish for her age (why does her mother or father have to make her breakfast?), the kid's social problems are very real.

But Jolene has left for the war with her marriage already hanging on by a thread, as her husband, Michael, has been pulling away further and further into work even before her deployment. Imagine going to war with the D-word (divorce) already in the air.

Jolene does her best to fulfill her duties in a dangerous, hot, miserable place all the while worrying about issues on the home front. When she does return home, PTSD hits, and it hits hard. Jolene is even more isolated from her daughters and her husband.

Will she heal? Will Michael wait? I have left out a huge part of the plot of "Home Front," not wanting to spoil the war story and its aftermath. "Home Front" is a book to teach us all a thing or two about the meaning of hero and the ties that hold our troops together when they are far from home. Ironically, I am writing this review on Pearl Harbor Day, a day that shook America into awakening and my father in service aboard the carrier Enterprise into his own part of hell.

U.S. troops, families of vets: we salute you.