"On Distant Shores" by Sarah Sundin

In this second book in her Wings of a Nighingale series, Sarah Sundin takes to the skies with another pioneer flight nurse during World War II. Picking up with the cast of characters established in With Every Letter, our heroine is Georgie Taylor, a southern belle who only joined the Army to keep up with her best friend Rose. Georgie is terrified of being in a position to make life-and-death decisions and can't wait to return home and marry her fiance Ward. Then others can make her decisions for her, the way they always did as she was growing up. The only decision she's ever made on her own was to join Rose, and look where that has taken her!

John Hutchinson went through four years of training to become a pharmacist, and he joined the military to help with the needs of the wounded on the front lines. Pharmacy was not a respected science in the Army at that time, and he was forced to join as an enlisted man and to work alongside those who had much less training and under men who looked down on his profession. Hutch struggles with feeling disrespected, but knowing his father is working hard to petition Congress to commission a Pharmacy Corps and that he is helping by being able to testify firsthand of the need of such a corps gives him a reason to press on.

When Georgie crosses paths with Hutch she's immediately drawn to the tall and knowledgeable sergeant. When she finds out that he also has a fiancee back at home she feels confident that they can be friends and both remain loyal to their stateside sweethearts. Besides, she's an officer and he isn't so fraternization is strictly forbidden. Hutch and Georgie both want to see each other be the best they can be. For Hutch that means encouraging Georgie that she is capable of doing her job and of being unwavering through the uncertainties that face her every day, while George tries to bring a light to Hutch's dark circumstances and challenges him to find contentment and meaning right where he is rather than waiting for a break to come his way.

While both Georgie and Hutch face the dangers of war, I found that most of the conflict in this story was internal, so to me it read as very character-driven. Even though I'm not in the Army I could relate to those internal struggles because while situations may be different, human emotions are much the same. I absolutely loved something Georgie learned on page 141: "...she shouldn't aim for safety but for strength to stand in an unsafe world." We still need people with that kind of God-given strength in the world we live in today.

The historical aspect of this novel was amazing, as always. It was painful to read about what those pharmacists had to go through, and there are brief but interesting scenes about shell-shock and racism that left me thankful for changes that have been made since then. I also enjoyed the setting, which was mostly in southern Italy. I had no idea that Mount Vesuvius erupted in 1944 or how it affected the troops stationed nearby. That's the kind of thing I'm always interested in learning, and one reason I love well-researched historical fiction.

This was another hit by Sarah Sundin. I'm so impressed by her storytelling skills, lovable characters, and historical accuracy. I look forward to reading the third book in this series in the near future.