Book Talk Tuesday: One Was A Soldier

I'm a big Julia Spencer-Fleming fan. When we took a trip to upstate New York in 2011, I felt very comfortable there, like I'd been there before. The lake. The farms. The dairies. The village. The brick storefronts. It took me a while to realize it felt so familiar because I had been there before, thanks to Julia and her Reverend Clare novels. Julia did such a great job making the setting of Millers Kill come alive on the page that it was a short hop to thinking I’d been there when I saw it for real.

In the latest book, Clare is back from a stint as a National Guard chopper pilot in Iraq. She’s drinking too much, self-medicating too much, and having nightmares. She’s not alone. She joins a support group for other returning vets and gets drawn into their stories. The double leg amputee. The married woman whose battlefield affair follows her home. The doctor who can’t remember which patient he just saw and what he prescribed. The cop with anger management issues.

The ending of this one is a shocker and it's already two years old. I can't wait for the next installment. Please, Julia, hurry up and write!