Once A Warrior
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
This generational saga follows three friends from Kansas City who serve in different ways in harrowing World War II adventures: First Lieutenant John Brown, Private Charlie Miller and Second Lieutenant Mike Scanlon. Mike falls in love with a young French Resistance member, Anne-Marie Gerard, and their daughter Catherine marries John Brown’s son. When Catherine’s husband is MIA after his plane is shot down in Vietnam, she follows the instructions he sent before disappearing, which take her to Saigon and contact with a mysterious renegade named Cain.
"An enduring love story written against a background of war" Publishers Weekly
"ONCE A WARRIOR, written by a woman, gives the reader a look at wars and their ramifications and their consequences--some good, some bad--and does it without assigning either blame or glory. It is a book about warriors, not heroes. ONCE A WARRIOR is peopled with characters so real you feel you know them, want to weep with their families, drink toasts at their weddings, hold them when tragedy strikes." -- Very Highly Recommended! ~Under the Covers Book Reviews
"Thank heaven for small presses and independent spirits. Otherwise, readers would be cheated out of a fine novel spanning two wars and two equally engaging romances. It's worth a reader's while to seek out ONCE A WARRIOR!" -- Cathy Sova for The Romance Reader
"This is a magnificent book. A book of love, courage, death, fear, hope, cowerdice, and life. It follows three young men (three warriors) and their offspring from World War II through the homecoming of a dead warrior thirty years after he is lost in Viet Nam. Based on well-researched history--a history given life by the author's deft hand with character and plot--the book should be on everyone's list of important books." -- 5 Very Bright Stars! The Word Museum
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Romance writer Baker's (When Last We Loved) latest dramatizes an enduring love story against a background of war. In the first half of the book, Baker describes the varied experiences of three friends from Kansas City, Mo., who serve in WWII. First Lieutenant John Brown goes down with his plane in a taut, moving scene; Private Charlie Miller succumbs to shell shock after being held in a prisoner-of-war camp; Second Lieutenant Mike Scanlon fights in the Allied invasion at Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge. Wounded several times, Mike falls in love with a young member of the French Resistance, Anne-Marie Gerard, and they marry. In time, their daughter Catherine, married to John Brown's son, learns that her husband is MIA after his plane is shot down in Vietnam. Following Johnny's instructions in a letter he sent before disappearing, Cat travels to Saigon to contact a mysterious renegade named Cain, and thus begins another odyssey of adventure, intrigue and passionate love. Baker's writing indulges in cliches and moves toward the formulaic, but her descriptions of war, particularly the WWII battles, are grimly honest, and they effectively drive home the novel's concern with the wasteful loss of human life.
