The Wartime Sisters
A Novel
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Lilac Girls, the next powerful novel from the author of Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist The Two-Family House about two sisters working in a WWII armory, each with a deep secret.
"Loigman’s strong voice and artful prose earn her a place in the company of Alice Hoffman and Anita Diamant, whose readers should flock to this wondrous new book." —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan’s Tale
"The Wartime Sisters shows the strength of women on the home front: to endure, to fight, and to help each other survive.” —Jenna Blum, New York Times and international bestselling author of The Lost Family and Those Who Save Us
Two estranged sisters, raised in Brooklyn and each burdened with her own shocking secret, are reunited at the Springfield Armory in the early days of WWII. While one sister lives in relative ease on the bucolic Armory campus as an officer’s wife, the other arrives as a war widow and takes a position in the Armory factories as a “soldier of production.” Resentment festers between the two, and secrets are shattered when a mysterious figure from the past reemerges in their lives.
"One of my favorite books of the year." —Fiona Davis, national bestselling author of The Dollhouse and The Masterpiece
"A stirring tale of loyalty, betrayal, and the consequences of long-buried secrets.” —Kristina McMorris, New York Times bestselling author of The Edge of Lost and Sold on a Monday
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Estranged sisters seek connection and purpose at the Springfield Armory during the tumult of WWII in this novel of productive rivalries from Loigman (The Two-Family House). Ruth and Millie Kaplan have been at odds from the beginning. As children, they were labeled by their parents and their tightly knit Jewish community in Brooklyn as the brains and the beauty, respectively. Growing up, Ruth seethed as she felt obligated to fix her little sister's mistakes. Meanwhile, Millie soaked in all the male attention, but also aspired to be more than just someone's trophy wife. When unexpected tragedy breaks the family apart, Ruth leaves Brooklyn for Springfield, Mass., to stay with extended family, while Millie stays behind, gets married, and only rarely writes her sister. Years later, at the height of WWII, Millie and her young son shows up on Ruth's doorstep, forcing to the surface their long-closeted frustrations. Together with a cast of motivated women from all classes of society, Ruth and Millie navigate old lies as well as newfound alliances and enemies within the Springfield Armory, where they all work to help the war effort. With measured, lucid prose, Loigman tells a moving story of women coming together in the face of difficulties, both personal and global, and doing anything to succeed.