Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris

Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn’t need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she’s set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange–cut short by the soldier’s evident interest in Betty–but Liz can’t forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

Thousands of miles away, Morgan struggles to adjust to the brutality of war. His letters from “Betty” are a comfort, their soul-baring correspondence a revelation to them both. While Liz is torn by her feelings for a man who doesn’t know her true identity, Betty and Julia each become immersed in their own romantic entanglements. And as the war draws to a close, all three will face heart-wrenching choices, painful losses, and the bittersweet joy of new beginnings. (Goodreads)

Betty has a singing gig at a USO dance and her roommates Liz and Julia has promised to come there. During the night Liz ends up dancing with Morgan, who leaves to war the next day. They instantly feels connection but when Liz sees him dancing with Betty later on, she thinks she must have been wrong and leaves home. Betty promised to write to Morgan overseas but she isn’t a writer and needs Liz to help her but Liz ends up writing the whole letter herself. When Morgan answers, Liz starts to writing letters to him without telling Betty about it.

I haven’t read much World War II related books so I was interested to read this and I was happy that I did.

The book is told from Liz, Julia, Betty and Morgan’s point of view. It was intresting to read about them all and they were in different points in life. Liz is engaged to a childhood friend, Julia’s fiancée is at war and she is falling in love with his brother and Betty enlisted as a WAC and gets shipped off to field hospital.

I’m not usually fan of books that has lot of letter writing but it worked here. And it was great to see how they got to know each other so well and falling in love through letters. And how much comfort letters gave to men at war and far away from families.We see all the characters to change during the book, and not only for the wartime experiance.

I really liked this and was curious when I read that the author’s grandparent’s love story inspired the book.

3,5/5
Published: Avon (2011)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
Source: publisher