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    Letters from Home
    Letters from Home
    Letters from Home
    Audiobook12 hours

    Letters from Home

    Written by Kristina McMorris

    Narrated by Madeleine Dauer

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.

    Beautifully rendered and deeply moving, Letters from Home is a story of hope and connection, of sacrifices made in love and war-and the chance encounters that change us forever.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9781977343277
    Letters from Home
    Author

    Kristina McMorris

    Kristina McMorris is a New York Times, USA TODAY, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of two novellas and seven historical novels, including Sold on a Monday with over a million copies sold. The recipient of more than twenty national literary awards, she previously hosted weekly TV shows for Warner Bros. and an ABC affiliate, beginning at age nine with an Emmy Award-winning program, and owned a wedding-and-event-planning company until she far surpassed her limit of "Y.M.C.A." and chicken dances. She lives with her family in Oregon. Visit her online at kristinamcmorris.com; Instagram: @kristina.mcmorris; Twitter: @KrisMcmorris; and Facebook: @KristinaMcMorrisAuthor.

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    Reviews for Letters from Home

    4/5

    73 ratings19 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Set during World War II, from Chicago to the battles waging in Europe, from a USO club to a military field hospital, Kristina McMorris has created a moving story in LETTERS FROM HOME. This narrative was inspired by the true love story of her own grandparents’ romance and how their correspondence during the war resulted in their eventual loving union. Revolving around three female characters, LETTERS FROM HOME will grab you from the first page and not let you go until you have finished by looking at the wonderful “war time” recipes McMorris has included in the back of the book.Liz Stephens, Betty Cordell, and Julia Renard were roommates in Chicago back in 1944. Each with a different goal in mind, the story follows these women as their lives entwine and they strive to reach those goals. Along the way, they find that no matter what they planned, life happens and some of their journeys end in a much different place than originally intended. Liz starts out fully expecting to marry Dalton Harris, a friend since they were children who is now a young, local politician. Betty is set on marrying a man of means, unlike her mother, while Julia’s dream is heading in the right direction now with a chance to intern for a very famous fashion design team. However, Julia is also engaged to Christian Downing, who is already overseas and while she waits for his return, knowing decisions will need to be made, his brother Ian returns from war, a changed man. Julia feels sorry for him but before she realizes it, those feelings begin to change to something more intense.Enter the rest of the male characters with Morgan McClain, who with his brother Charlie, is enjoying a last hurrah at the Chicago USO Club before shipping out. Although Morgan would have been quite happy to continue his life at home, he thought it best he sign up to watch over his brother Charlie as he had done for most of his life given that Charlie could be rather impetuous. When Morgan and Liz meet at the USO, there is immediate chemistry, but when Morgan, always the good guy, goes to help Betty, Liz leaves thinking she had probably imagined it. What could she be thinking anyway when she is destined to be with Dalton?One thing leads to another and Betty begins to write to Morgan overseas but feels she is inadequate in her writing skills and asks Liz for help. With Betty’s persuasive personality, Liz agrees and soon Morgan and Liz are writing meaningful, deep letters with Morgan picturing Betty while it is Liz he is really falling for. Betty makes a sudden patriotic, but possibly dangerous decision to join the Woman’s Army Corp and in doing so, finds a real romance of her own.As LETTERS FROM HOME goes on, switching from battle fields to the home front, from the men to the women, McMorris writes with a personal touch that really keeps the reader “in the moment” and waiting to see which direction each character will go next. When the war ends, each of the women now has to come to terms with decisions they have made. What will happen when the men come home? Will Julia follow her dream or continue along the path she has started on? Will Liz be married safely to her childhood friend or take a chance on someone she thinks she has feelings for as a result of those letters? What will become of Betty and who will she finally wind up with, if any? And what IF all the men don’t come home? The ending stayed with me as it is one that left me thinking about each character and the choices they made for quite a while. Was I surprised, you might ask? I will say this, war can change people and sometimes we have to ask if we really knew that person to begin with. The fact that Kristina McMorris has written with such depth and emotion, reflected in her characters, the ending, and the story overall. I think you will only know what I mean by reading LETTERS FROM HOME by Kristina McMorris and make your own judgment.
    • 5/5
      Great first novel by author, well written and enjoyable read. I laughed and cried throughout. Characters become friends and you are sad for the book to end.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. Read it in one day, I couldn't put it down. I would've given it 5 stars if it wasn't for the summary. I thought it was solely about Liz and Morgan. When it was really about her, her 2 friends and Morgan. It was just a little confusing the first few chapters when they were trying to separate the stories from the 4 characters.
    • 3/5
      Enjoyable but predictable romance.Liz falls in love with the man she is writing to.Betty finds out she is more than just a pretty face when she joins the WAC.Julie thinks her fiancé's brother hates her, he is in love with her of course.
    • 4/5
      Classic Cyrano with a twist. Great period piece. Seeing the different women come into themselves was as compelling as the budding romances.
    • 4/5
      Very good!
    • 5/5
      Sometimes books really pleasantly surprise you. It wasn't that I thought this would be bad, it was more that I just figured it would be okay but not anything spectacular. I think I was a little more apprehensive about it because I read a book dealing with a romance in this era few months previously and had been epically disappointed. Still, it's a great era, the blurb sounded promising and I saw that people seemed to genuinely love it so I figured it was probably worth giving it a try. Who doesn't love the idea of falling in love via letters, especially in the current day of instant communication.

      There was a lot to this story that I loved - being the to romantic that I am, I naturally loved the romance. Morgan, a soldier about to head off to war goes to a dance and is drawn to Liz, a woman there with friends. The two talk and their connection is formed, making Liz forget that she had a boyfriend but just as things are progressing, Liz comes back from a trip to the bathroom to find Morgan dancing with her beautiful room-mate Betty and immediately assumes the worst and leaves assuming he was more interested in Betty.

      Betty, having given Morgan's brother her address so Morgan could write to her after he had left her after their dance, begs Liz to help her write a letter to him and that is how the mix-up happens. Betty, long since given up on the letters, doesn't even think anymore, but Liz then continues the correspondence under Betty's name and the two fall in love as he shares his experiences of war and she, through encouragement from him, takes control of her own life.

      As much as I adored the romance of the story (and it would be hard not to as Morgan is wonderful) the other aspects were almost as wonderful. Betty enlists and ends up in an army hospital and it is through this that she finds herself at long last while Julia, Liz's other friend, is stuck at home waiting on her fiance to return.

      The book has everything - there are parts of it that are tragic, other parts that a touching and there are secondary storylines that all add to the story rather than detract. Although you wait for each letter, you still look forward to dropping in on Betty's maturation in an unforgiving environ, or see Morgan try and handle the horrors of war, or see Liz trying to juggle what she thinks she should do with what she wants to do, or Julia wait, patiently, on letters that stop coming.

      Maybe it's because I'm a sap, but the book left me with a smile and a longing to go write letters to people. It made me remember being a child and the thrill I had when I had an actual penpal. Time moves on and naturally nowadays it is much easier to contact people regardless of where they are in the world, but there is something wonderful about sitting down and pouring out your thoughts on paper and this book kinda reminded me of how wonderful that can be. Definitely check it out.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars

      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.
    • 5/5
      I cannot find the words to express how much I loved this book. I love WWII historical fiction and while looking for more of that genre to read I had come across this book and decided that I would eventually read it. I only wish that I had read this sooner.I haven't connected this easily with characters in a while. They didn't just seem like characters to me, it felt like I was there with them and they were my friends and family experiencing this (That's kinda weird, yes I know.)I didn't think I could shed so many tears at once. I feel like for the entire second half of this book I was in tears (Not all my tears were sad ones, some were happy ones too). This book was just so beautifully written that I was able to get emotional over it.Overall I felt like this was a beautiful book with a great plot and fantastic characters. I would recommend this to everyone (Seriously, if you haven't read this book already go read it now!), and especially historical fiction fans.
    • 4/5
      Letters From Home is the story of three girlfriends, their boyfriends, and how the war drastically changes all of their lives. The main characters of the book are Liz and Morgan (a soldier), who are writing letters back and forth to each other. The special twist to the story is that Morgan thinks he is writing to Betty. The story bounces back and forth between the girls at home and Morgan at the front lines. Betty and Julia’s stories are told as subplots, and each of their stories leaves you wanting to spend more time finding out about their world. I particularly liked Betty’s story, and would not have been upset at all if the author had decided to lengthen her section of the book.Liz sets out to write to Morgan as a favor to Betty and in the process Liz starts to fall in love with Morgan. She has good intentions of telling him the truth and breaking off the correspondence (especially since she’s engaged to someone else), but as her love for Morgan grows she finds many excuses to keep writing to him.There was really only one thing about this book that took away from the story for me, and that was a section of writing in the first third of the book that contained an overabundance of metaphors and similes. Once I got past that section though the rest of the book flowed smoothly and was a pleasure to read. (I was reading an advance copy, so I don’t know if any additional edits were done to the section in the beginning.)My favorite parts of the story were the letters between Liz and Morgan. The author gives a realistic portrayal of the development of their love via letters, and I was eager to see how Morgan would find out Liz’s true identity.I was enchanted by both this story and the author’s grandparent’s love story which inspired the plot. I recommend Letters From Home for those who are looking for a heartwarming World War II romance.
    • 5/5
      Kristina McMorris has hit a home run out of the ball park with this, her debut novel. Letters From Home centers around three female friends who are all out for the evening at a USO club in Chicago in 1944. Liz who is almost engaged to her childhood friend Dalton, has her life mapped out; Julia who is engaged to sailor Christian and who gives up a shot at being a fashion editor for Vogue; and Betty the blonde bombshell singer at the USO who is every guy's fantasy but who is searching for more to her life than slinging hash at a neighborhood diner. Enter the McLain brothers, Morgan and Charlie, who are shipping out the next morning. At first glance Morgan falls for the sedate brunette Liz but ends up 'saving' Betty by pretending to be her fiance. As a thank you, Betty gives him her photo with her address on it and invites him to write to her. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Liz deals with her strong instant attraction to Morgan but quashes it when she spots him in a clinch with Betty. That is where the story begins. Where it gets interesting is when Morgan, now in Europe, writes to Betty. Betty hasn't given him a second thought and is cajoles Liz into writing a return letter for her. Liz caves in, writes the letter, and signs Betty's name. An exchange of letters between Morgan and Betty/Liz ensues for the remainder of the war. The correspondents open their hearts to each other and in time fall in love; Liz with Morgan and Morgan with Betty. The author has woven a time-honored story with well developed characters that we learn to care about from the first page. Her descriptions of war-time events and military hospitals is spot-on. The reactions of the characters to their personal dilemmas makes the reader empathize with their choices and the consequences. Ms. McMorris shifts our attention from the European to the Pacific Theaters of War seamlessly. We are never lost or left hanging. While Ms. McMorris used the real-life correspondence between her own grandparents as inspiration for this story, I found myself comparing her characters to my own parents who were married shortly before my father was drafted. I was drawn into the story and couldn't put the book down - in fact I resented any intrusion on my reading. I heartily recommend Letters From Home to anyone who had relatives in WWII and to readers of historical fiction. I hope to read more from this promising author.
    • 3/5
      WWII has never interested me in the way that it has other people. I didn’t care about Brokaw’s Greatest Generation. I don’t have a grandparent that fought in WWII.As I have said before, other wars and periods fascinate me more. (Anyone want to read about the American Revolution?!?!) But the best thing about Letters from Home is not the time period.McMorris uses her historical setting well. Readers can picture the USO dances, the jungle army tents, the painted on pantyhose. But the setting never defines this story. Letters from Home is a love story more than it is a history lesson.In some ways, Letters from Home is the anti-21st century love story. Today we know “everything” about someone with very little effort. I can Google you. I can read your Facebook page. We can Skype. All of this lets us assume that we know a lot about each other quickly. Letters from Home reminds us that really knowing and loving someone is slow. It takes time. Morgan and Liz fall in love through letters that took months/weeks to deliver. Taking things quickly was never an option, and I wondered how dedicated we could all be through that.Love in Letters doesn’t just take the romantic form. Betty’s story intrigued me more than the love story at times because throughout Letters Betty learns to love herself and finds worth in helping others. Again…something more of us should do.My only compliant about Letters from Home is that I wish the meat of the story-the conflict that all three women face-would have come sooner. I really enjoyed that McMorris tackled several female WWII stories, and because I don’t know a lot about Army nurses and the like I would have loved more.
    • 4/5
      In this world of electronic communications, our correspondence with each other is very often fleeting, off the cuff, and once we hit the send button, despite archiving, generally lost to others. Before the advent of e-mail, people took the time to write letters, thoughtful and considered and very often saved and cherished. Kristina McMorris found just such a bundle of letters between her grandparents during WWII and her discovery planted the seed that would become her first novel. Opening in the summer of 1944, this novel is a WWII-era Cyrano de Bergerac tale. Betty, Julia, and Liz are best friends and roommates. So when Betty has a gig singing at a USO dance, both Julia and Liz go to support her. Julia is engaged to Christian, who is fighting the war in the Navy and Liz is seriously dating Dalton, who is busy running his father's Senate campaign. Somehow Liz ends up meeting and dancing with Morgan McClain, who is on the eve of shipping out with his cut-up younger brother Charlie. They each feel an immediate connection but after Liz spies Morgan dancing with Betty later in the evening, she disappears home. What Liz doesn't know is that Betty has promised to write Morgan overseas and now she needs Liz's help with the first letter. Julia receives loving and wonderful letters from Christian and Betty decides that writing to Morgan is the way for her to receive letters like this too. But she isn't a writer like Liz and she essentially snookers Liz into the correspondence on her behalf. But circumstances during wartime change rapidly, even on the homefront and soon Betty, searching for a sense of purpose, has enlisted as a WAC herself and been shipped out to New Guinea missing the arrival of Morgan's first reply. Liz tells herself that she can't quit writing to Morgan when he's defending the country and so she continues to write to him as Betty and feeling a growing emotion, perhaps even love, through their exchange even while she and Dalton get engaged. Interspersed with Liz's story and growing quandry are Morgan's, Julia's, and Betty's stories. Morgan's wartime experiences with his brother Charlie and the other guys in their unit tell of interminable waiting, unimaginable horror, and heartbreaking grief. Betty's story shows yet another side to the war, that of the women and nurses out in the field hospitals enduring terrible conditions and still offering comfort as best they can. Julia's story is perhaps is the most conventional, the sweetheart left at home, who can only hope, as she declines a fantastic professional opportunity and plans her wedding, that her love will come home to her safely. All of the plot lines weave together nicely, rounding out the picture of life during the war from many different perspectives. Liz and Morgan's correspondence takes center stage as it not only enlarges their characters and advances the plot but it is also the catalyst for change and introspection that each of their characters would not have had the courage to undertake without the truth of the letters. Each of the three young women are delightfully different and well-constructed characters, as is Morgan. Dalton and Christian remain cyphers, despite their presence in the narrative, Dalton's presence more frequent than Christian's. Each of the characters is irretrievably changed by the end of the book, true not only because only because of their wartime experiences but because of the growth of their hearts over this same period. Alternating the focus on different characters in succeeding chapters helped to keep the narrative tension even and all the plots unspooling at about the same pace. The letters between Liz and Morgan were lovely, filled with yearning, for a simpler, more innocent time and for the future. There were occasional moments of clunkiness in the writing ("No doubt, her father would be far from delighted if he knew what she was considering. As would her mother, if she were around to intone her disapproval.") but generally the simple, relaxed tone made for easy and pleasing reading. A lovely update on the Cyrano story, bookclub members and other readers who favor historical fiction will find this an enjoyable selection.
    • 5/5
      This story is inspired by the author's own grandparents. It takes place primarily in 1944-45 in Illinois, Dutch New Guinea and France. Brothers Morgan and Charlie McClain who are in Chicago, before shipping out to France, go to a club and there they meet Liz, Betty and Julia. Each chapter is told in a different characters voice and we learn more about each of them. A lot of this story is told in letter format between "Betty" and Morgan. Betty had originally asked Liz to pen a letter to Morgan and then she left to join the WAC's and never paid any more attention to it. Liz on the other hand continues the letters and thus "Betty" (Liz) learn more about each other and come to have feelings for each other.We also see how awful and devastating the war is from Morgan. Liz is torn about telling Morgan who she really is but does not want to lose Morgans . Betty joins the WAC's and spends her time serving in Dutch New Guinea working as a nurse. Julia is another roommate engaged to Christian who has her own issues to deal with. Will Morgan find out who "Betty" really is?? Will Julia marry the love of her life? And Betty, what will her future hold? You have to read the book to find out!!I found this book to be very emotional, in a time when letters are pretty much the only way to communicate and during a war that left its toll on everyone concerned. I found my self cheering for them in some parts of the story and also in tears in others. Any war is devastating for those involved and the author portrayed the characters in this story as real people with real emotions who were able to see what life they wanted after the war was over and deal with what the war did to their lives..
    • 5/5
      The first thing I have to say about this book is the fact that it really felt like I was in the 1940s in the midst of WWII. Ms. McMorris does a fabulous job of setting the tone and setting of the book. I felt like she really did her research from the way the characters talked to the various settings, they just felt right. No accidental usage of current slang to take me out of the moment. The era is the book is wonderfully done.Next is the characters. I love Liz and Julia and Betty grew on me. Betty seemed a little stuck on herself at first but as I read more about her I started liking her more and more. Liz seems to be the star of this book while still having storylines involving Julia and Betty. I am in hopes that more books will follow and will tell the continuing stories of Julia and Betty. In this book Liz is engaged, but then she meets Morgan the night before he heads off to serve in the war. Then she sees him with Betty and gives up on the feelings she felt. Then the curveball is thrown when Betty asks Liz to write to Morgan for her since she doesn't know what to say. A relationship grows through the letters and leads to the main storyline of the book.I found the letters fascinating and a wonderful way to get to know the characters. The letters are interspersed with accounts from each of the characters lives and it's a great way to get to know all the main players in the book and also to see life on the home front and on the front lines. The focus is on the characters though and how they grow and change during the book because of the way they affect one another.The book is beautifully written and completely captivating. I hated putting it down to do other things and was anxious to pick it back up. I could read it in a busy room with no problem, that was how engrossed I would become in the book. The romance is sweet, the end is great, the tension building is wonderfully done and I just can't gush enough about this book. This is Ms. McMorris' debut and I can't wait to see what she writes next.
    • 4/5
      Reading her work, I would not have taken Kristina McMorris for a first-time novelist. Her debut, Letters from Home is historical fiction flawlessly delivered and masterfully told. She transports us back in time a nation in the middle of the harrowing tragedies of World War II, and gives us not only a beautiful love story, but several perfectly woven stories of lives forever changed in myriad ways as they were touched by the war.Her characters were astonishingly real. I marveled sometimes at the details of this historical period that she knew so well to make each of them come alive. From the soldiers in the field to the women and men trying to live a normal life at home her details were impressive in the life they gave these characters. As these characters explored the meaning not only of love and war, but of family and duty and home itself, I found myself more than once feeling like I had slipped into a piece of my grandparent’s lives and aching a little bit, missing them. Missing the parts of them I knew, and the parts of them I never will.“They were kids back in their dad’s Iowa fields, dozing out in the open, naming shapes made of stars in the sky. A sky that offered them promises, futures as limitless as the universe.A sky that lied.” (Ch. 6)Not only does she give us a sweeping love story, she offers unique stories and perspectives that I wasn’t expecting (like as unlikely a soldier as ever in Betty who ends up in a remote army hospital in New Guinea) , she tackles her stories with aching beauty, loss and longing. But not least of all there is a sense throughout the book of innocence being shed, of real people being forced into seeing the world through vastly changed eyes and maintaining throughout it all something miraculous – hope.Letters from Home easily will remain in my mind as one of my favorite historical fiction of the era. It felt in many ways discovering, accepting and finally coming home. I have no doubt we will see great things from Ms. McMorris in the future.The Concept:A missed connection. A correspondence that sustains and changes both of the lovers. Only one of them is not exactly who she says she is. It’s a page straight from Cyrano, but it’s given so much more meaning and consequence. The historical backdrop and excellent writing transforms and elevates this story into something more human and every bit as romantic.Cover Story: BI actually think this cover is a really great fit for this book. It’s not overly original and it doesn’t blow me away, but it’s simple, pretty and fitting of the grace of the stories. This is one case where the story inside more than makes up for any lacking perfection from the cover.
    • 5/5
      I am a huge fan of historical fiction and when I read that "Letters From Home"was inspired by the love letters of the authors grandparents I was totally hooked. Set during WWII, the story revolves around three young ladies Liz, Betty and Julia,who have been best friends since they were thrown together as lab partners in freshman science.The three of them live in Elizabeth (Liz) Stephens grandparents home. Each have their own aspirations in life, Liz plans on marrying her childhood friend Dalton, and also becoming a literature professor. Julia is engaged to Christian, who is serving overseas, but she also is great with fashion, and has just been offered a chance at an impressive internship with Vogue. Betty works as a waitress and also sings at the USO, she decides that her life needs a change and makes a quick decision to join the Women's Army Corps. Morgan McClain and his brother Charlie are getting ready to ship out and are spending their last night at the USO in Chicago. Charlie is anxious to get into battle, he would have enlisted early but his brother Morgan convinced him to wait until he was eighteen, and because Morgan has always looked out for his brother, he signed up as well.When Morgan and Liz meet at the USO they feel drawn to each other, but when Liz goes to the bathroom and comes back Morgan is dancing with Betty, making Liz think that she only imagined the spark she felt. Betty starts corresponding with Morgan but soon convinces Liz to write the letters for her, as the letters fly back and forth Morgan thinks he is falling for Betty, never realizing it is actually Liz he is corresponding with. The author weaves together the stories of the characters perfectly, pulling you into their lives so completely that I really couldn't put the book down.There are some light humorous moments but also some heart wrenching ones as well. Because the author starts each chapter with the date and location she easily transistions the story between the States and the battlefield. As we get the back stories of the characters, I found myself especially drawn to Liz, who felt abandoned by her father, and I really kept hoping that Julia wouldn't give up her chance with Vogue. I was so totally surprised when Betty joined the WAC. I kept wondering what Morgan would do when he found out the truth about who he was actually corresponding with. But most of all I found myself holding my breath, hoping that the men would make it back home alive. If your looking for a well written story that will transport you back to a simpler time, where the characters stick in your heart and mind long after you have read the last page then you definitely want to read this book! I was provided a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely fell in love with this debut! Kristina McMorris has definitely got what it takes to hook her readers from the start and keep them hooked long into the night, until they reach that very last page. Her style is absolutely stunning as she writes of love and war, and even mixes it with some laughter here and there. The characters she created are life like and complex. They all became my favorite and they all became my family for the duration of reading this novel. Each set of characters-Liz, Dalton and Morgan, Julia, Christian and Ian, Betty, Junior, and Leslie- had different stories to tell yet, Kristian McMorris blended them intricately, making them seem like one magnificent story. This is a fairly fast read, for when you open it, the story comes alive and you are captured. While it's based on facts, it's fictional wowing work that fills your heart to overflowing with amazing writing talent and a story that touches a deep and hidden place in the readers heart. It takes you back to a time when "letters from home" are all the "boys" depended on to get them through the war. That, blended with the love, will make this 5 star novel one that I will always remember and that I will recommend to anyone who asks me about a really fantastic, heartwarming story about love. I can't wait for another novel like this from the new and highly talented author, Kristian McMorris!
    • 4/5
      The year is 1944 and war is sweeping across Europe, forever changing the landscape and the people whose lives are touched by it. In America, three female roommates will be forever altered over the course of one year. Julia, a talented designer who longs only to be the best wife she can be to her fiance Christian, will find the choice between career and domesticity is not always clear cut. Betty, the sexy blond who belts out songs for USO events, will surprise everyone when she enrolls in the Women’s Army Corps. And Liz, engaged to her childhood sweetheart, will have to go back to her past in order to reconcile her future. When Betty asks Liz to ghostwrite a letter to a soldier name Morgan, events quickly spiral out of control for Liz as she and Morgan begin a correspondence that becomes progressively more romantic.Kristina McMorris’s debut novel is a mix between historical fiction and romance. Inspired by the war time love story of her grandparents, McMorris has written a novel of three young women whose structured lives take unexpected turns due to romantic entanglements, misunderstandings, and the ever present unpredictability of war.McMorris alternates points of view, moving between each of the main female characters as well as that of Morgan and his brother Charlie who are stationed in Belgium. I found myself especially connected to Morgan’s story. The war scenes were well written, realistic, and tension filled. Morgan struggles to deal with the horror of his every day life, clinging to the letters from Liz (which he thinks are written by Betty), while worrying about the safety of his younger brother.Letters from Home is, at its heart, a love story. Each of the characters’ lives is touched by love in various ways. Betty’s external beauty makes it difficult for her to get past superficial romances and dare to expose her heart to a man. Julia’s romantic view of love threatens to thwart her own personal growth. Liz’s desire for security makes her fearful of taking a risk with a man who speaks to her heart, but is someone she has only known through their exchange of letters. For all three women, love will exact a cost as they are forced to make painful choices and suffer personal losses.For those readers who love books in the romance genre, there is plenty of passion, fluttering hearts and romantic exchanges. If the plot is a bit predictable, McMorris makes up for that with well-developed and likable characters. Fans of historical fiction will enjoy the realistic battle scenes and accurate historical facts intertwined with fictional characters. Overall, a light and enjoyable read, Letters from Home will satisfy those readers looking for a story of hope and sacrifice in times of war.