I have had many people ask about the details of the novel. Below is a brief synopsis, but there is so much more to the story I don’t believe that this description does it justice. I chose to write this piece of historical fiction not as a love story but to share the remarkable lives of the WWII War Brides and the undeniable importance that The Queen Mary played in their journey. The strength and resilience of all involved had a story of their own. One deserving to be told.
Brides Aweigh
Synopsis
Emma, like many other young British women, falls in love and marries one of the American GI’s who are stationed in her town during the course of WWII. Her husband is shipped out and she remains at home in worry and wonder for more than a year; when a letter arrives from the Army stating that she can be reunited with her American husband. The Queen Mary, still in military service, will ferry War Brides to the United States for the “Operation Daddy” mission. With two other brides from her town, Emma sets sail on the biggest adventure of her life, leaving behind all she has ever known.
Emma faces more than loneliness onboard the ship. Self-doubt, self-recollection, and adversity force her to wonder if her husband is little more than a stranger. Fortunately she encounters many characters on the Queen Mary who help her discover who and what she wants to be in the future. Her traveling companions include a male War Bride, a child who is meeting an unknown American father after the death of the child’s mother, and many other women from different backgrounds and stations. Emma encounters true tragedy for the first time in her life, as an American soldier dies just days prior to arriving on American soil, and she loses the friendship of her best friend over circumstances involving morality.
In the end, her journey teaches her the strength to walk off the ship and become the woman she has been destined to be always.
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