Book Review (and a Giveaway): Soar Like Eagles by Terri Wangard

Carol becomes a Red Cross doughnut girl, serving GIs and boosting their morale. Convinced wartime romances are doomed to disappointment, she attempts to avoid entanglements.

She didn’t plan on Chet, the navigator who tempts her to throw caution to the wind.

Chet’s father and brothers always belittled him. As a squadron lead navigator, he longs to prove them wrong. He’s already been offered a terrific job with PanAm after the war.

First he must survive his combat tour. Will he even have a future?

SERIES: Promise For Tomorrow #3
GENRE: Inspirational Historical Fiction
PUBLISHER: Celebrate Lit
RELEASE DATE: December 2, 2016
PAGES: 312

Other Books In This Series

“Neither side really wins a war.”

This series by Terri Wangard is a fascinating look into the experiences of WW2 Army Air Force navigators. Soar Like Eagles also introduces us to another glimpse of history – the Red Cross doughnut girls. Through the medium of story, Wangard takes us into the combat zones and through the dangers of involuntarily infiltrating enemy territory (i.e. your plane got shot down or you had to bail out). We experience their emotions as well as the sights and sounds and smells of the battle, of the hospitals, of the front lines.

Along with the vivid insight into history, Soar Like Eagles also teams with a host of compelling characters. Chet and Carol are immediately engaging and likable, and you can’t help but smile at their sweet and sincere interactions. Another thing I love (and simultaneously bemoan lol) about Wangard’s writing is that we get quite attached to the secondary characters too. In a war story, with dangerous flight conditions and Red Cross girls at the front lines, this sometimes means you swallow around a huge lump in your throat where your heart is now lodged and reach for the box of tissues that your trusty reviewer warned you to keep close at hand. We also get to cross paths again with people we’ve met in the previous two books, in most cases seeing the same scene or events from Chet’s perspective this time. (While reading Friends and Enemies and No Neutral Ground will help you appreciate these scenes and the beautifully poignant epilogue all the more, it’s not absolutely necessary.)

Bottom Line: If you love fiction that teaches you something about history while it captivates you with engaging characters, then you need to add Terri Wangard’s Promise For Tomorrow trilogy to your TBR list. Soar Like Eagles, particularly, brims with action and emotion as well as sweet romance and lifelong friendship. You will experience a wide range of reactions as you read Soar Like Eagles – smiles, tears, even holding your breath as you wait to hear which planes (and crews) made it safely back from a mission.

(I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the publisher. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.)

My Rating: 4 stars / Page-turner!

KissingBook Level: 2 / Warm rosy glow of sweetness

Terri Wangard grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, during the Lombardi Glory Years. Her first Girl Scout badge was the Writer. These days she is writing historical fiction, and won the 2013 Writers on the Storm contest and 2013 First Impressions, as well as being a 2012 Genesis finalist. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in library science, she lives in Wisconsin. Her research included going for a ride in a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. Classic Boating Magazine, a family business since 1984, keeps her busy as an associate editor.

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For the third book of my World War II series, I needed something to involve my main character with. At first I considered the train canteens, where volunteers laden with food met troop trains crisscrossing the country. That wouldn’t work though, because my navigator was heading overseas and I didn’t want a correspondence relationship. Besides, someone else had already written a novel about the canteens. Then I discovered the Red Cross clubmobiles.

The American Red Cross operated canteens on the home front and clubs and clubmobiles overseas during World War II to provide soldiers and sailors with a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a bit of friendly conversation that gave the men a familiar connection with home.

Around the world, the Red Cross staffed permanent service clubs, traveling clubmobiles, and other recreational facilities. Service clubs provided refreshments, accommodations, and comfort and recreational activities wherever American troops were located overseas. In major cities, they offered meals, recreational activities, overnight accommodations, and barbershops and laundries. Some also provided sightseeing opportunities, touring museums, castles and cathedrals, and attending local theaters and movie houses.

Smaller clubs provided food in outlying areas near American military camps. The Red Cross also operated rest homes, often in stately manor houses in rural, tranquil locations overseas, for service personnel needing respite from the pressures of war.

To serve military sites in isolated areas, the Red Cross used clubmobiles in Great Britain in 1942 and later, the continent. Staffed by three American Red Cross women and a local driver in England, they visited several sites in a day, bringing refreshments, entertainment, and a touch of home to the troops in a foreign land. They used converted half-ton trucks and single-deck London buses, which featured kitchen equipment for making and serving doughnuts and coffee. Some carried phonographs and loudspeakers to provide music for the troops, and the women often danced with the servicemen. On the continent, the women had to drive and service their trucks.

Many American servicemen had never traveled far from home. At Red Cross clubs and clubmobiles in far-flung places around the globe, they received a connection to home and civilian life through friendly American women and familiar food. The Red Cross served a basic purpose of raising morale.

Carol Doucet of Soar Like Eagles was proud to be a Red Cross Doughnut Girl.

To celebrate her tour, Terri is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card and a signed paperback copy of Soar Like Eagles. Enter via the PromoSimple form below. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries!

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Follow along with the Celebrate Lit Blog Tour for a list of tour stops

*Images of Clubmobiles taken from this blog article which has a wealth of information and photos about the Red Cross Doughnut Girls.*