cover image Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Elizabeth Berg, . . Random, $24.95 (276pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-6510-3

A Rita Hayworth look-alike and her sister keep the home fires burning for young men going off to fight WWII in Berg's nostalgic tale of wartime romance and family sacrifice. Hoping her boyfriend, Julian, will propose before shipping out to the Pacific, beautiful redhead Kitty Heaney discovers not only is she not engaged, but she's enlisted as the delivery person for her sister Louise's engagement ring from Michael, her boyfriend, who has departed for the European front. Distance makes Louise's and Michael's hearts grow fonder while Kitty discovers independence through her job at a bomber factory. As the months go by, Louise learns she is pregnant and Kitty meets an attractive soldier (one of many the girls encounter) at a USO dance. As the young soldiers offer a range of feelings about war from humor to anger, wonder to despair, Berg (We Are All Welcome Here ; The Handmaid and the Carpenter ; 2000 Oprah pick Open House ) captures changing attitudes toward working women and single mothers in this sentimental celebration of a bygone era. (May)