DESPITE THE DANGER
At a time when most people in American have never flown in an airplane, spunky Mandy McCabe test-pilots repaired war planes as part of the Women Air Force Service Pilots. If the Army Air Corp shuts down the WASP program, she must return to life in her hard-scrabble home and face her past.
DESPITE THE OPPOSITION
Army Air Corp Major Harvey Applegate lost his WASP wife test-piloting planes and doesn’t want any more women killed on his watch. He fights to close the WASP program. Women aren’t designed to fight wars. Men fight to protect women freedom, and the American way of life.
DESPITE THE RAGING WAR
This World War II romance shows Steel Magnolias meeting Band of Brothers. Can Mandy escape from her past? Can a man burdened with memories of death agree to added danger for the new woman in his life? Will their new love survive the test of opposing desires and the pain and separation of war?
Following one’s dreams pulls at the heartstrings in this moving historical romance from Greene (Recipe for a Husband), set on an Air Force base in North Carolina during WWII. Courageous Mandy McCabe is a pilot with the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP), a program at risk of being shut down. Maj. Harvey Applegate has the influence to keep it running—but since the death of his wife, who was also a pilot, he’s become firmly convinced that a woman’s place is anywhere other than the cockpit of a plane. What begins as Mandy coaxing Harvey to keep the WASP program going turns into a deeply felt romance. Greene’s character-driven narrative, peppered with colloquial dialogue (“Bejiggers to him”), rings with authenticity. The complications that war imposes on love and marriage elevate the plot from predictability, while the slow-burning attraction between Mandy and Harvey makes for a sweet romance. Greene’s wonderful cast of secondary characters, including Harvey’s adorable six-year-old son, Teddy, and Mandy’s lovelorn mechanic, Nate, give the story both substance and heart. The fine balance between historical and emotional authenticity is sure to satisfy. (BookLife)
