Book group fiction at its best, BLUE STARS explores the bonds of family and the limits of fidelity, and tells the story of life on the home front in the 21st century.

Book group fiction at its best, BLUE STARS explores the bonds of family and the limits of fidelity, and tells the story of life on the home front in the 21st century.

Emily Gray Tedrowe has written an extraordinary novel about ordinary people, a graceful and gritty portrayal of what it’s like for the women whose husbands and sons are deployed in Iraq.

BLUE STARS brings to life the realities of the modern day home front: how to get through the daily challenges of motherhood and holding down a job while bearing the stress and uncertainty of war, when everything can change in an instant. It tells the story of Ellen, a Midwestern literature professor, who is drawn into the war when her legal ward Michael enlists as a Marine; and of Lacey, a proud Army wife who struggles to pay the bills and keep things going for her son while her husband is deployed. Ellen and Lacey cope with the fear and stress of a loved one at war while trying to get by in a society that often ignores or misunderstands what war means to women today. When Michael and Eddie are injured in Iraq, Ellen and Lacey’s lives become intertwined in Walter Reed Army Hospital, where each woman must live while caring for her wounded soldier. They form an alliance, and an unlikely friendship, while helping each other survive the dislocated world of the army hospital. Whether that means fighting for proper care for their men, sharing a six-pack, or coping with irrevocable loss, Ellen and Lacey pool their strengths to make it through. In the end, both women are changed, not only by the war and its fallout, but by each other.

Amid the chaos of World War II, three people find unexpected freedom through their connection to the natural world.

Amid the chaos of World War II, three people find unexpected freedom through their connection to the natural world.

Shot down on his first mission, James is taken to a German POW camp. To bide the time, he studies a family of birds. Some prisoners have been taken out of the camp and shot; some plot escape. And then, one day, the Kommandant invites him for a drive.

With James away, his young war bride Rose is free in a way she has never known --- working as an air raid warden, roaming the countryside with only her dog as company. Until a furloughed soldier brings new choices.

And then James’s sister, Enid, is bombed out of London. She loses her home and her lover in one tragic, impersonal act of war. Her only refuge is her brother’s --- Rose’s --- home. Each is protective of her secrets, but the two form a surprising friendship.

Each of these characters will find liberty amid war’s privations and discover confinements that come with peace. From a writer of “delicate and incandescent” (San Francisco Chronicle) prose, THE EVENING CHORUS offers a beautiful, spare examination of the natural world and the human heart.