Washoe County Library System

"1946. World War II has ended and all over the world, young women are beginning to fulfill the promises made to the men they wed in wartime. In Sydney, Australia, four women join 650 other war brides on an extraordinary voyage to England--aboard HMS Victoria, which still carries not just arms and aircraft but a thousand naval officers. And for Frances Mackenzie, the complicated young woman whose past comes back to haunt her far from home, the journey...

"Worn down by years of war and hardship, girls like Sylvia, Margaret, and Gwendolyn were thrilled when American GI's arrived in Britain with their exotic accents, handsome uniforms and aura of Hollywood glamor. Others, like Rae, who distrusted the Yanks,were eventually won over by their easy charm. So when VE Day finally came, for the 70,000 women who'd become GI brides, it was tinged with sadness--it meant leaving their homeland behind to follow...

"In Sunken Cathedral, Kate Walbert tells the stories of four women living in New York's Chelsea neighborhood, more or less now. Two, Marie and Simone, friends for decades, are widows in their seventies, yet robust, engaged, appetiteful, even ready to find love again. They were immigrants, survivors of World War II in Europe, and now are living alone in the houses where they raised their children. Elizabeth is Marie's tenant, the mother of a 13 year...

"Esmond and Ilia follows Marina Warner's beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel, is still away in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs. Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. With diamond rings on her fingers and brogues on her feet, Ilia steps fearlessly into the world of cricket and riding. But, without prospect of work in a bleak, war-ravaged...