The Riveter

In this exemplary historical, a Chinese Canadian man fights prejudice and falls in love during WWII. Josiah Chang, who’s unable to join the army because of his race, finds work as a riveter in a Vancouver shipyard in 1942. There, he meets yard worker Poppy Miller, who is also a nightclub singer. They fall hard for each other, and Poppy accepts his marriage proposal, even though her parents refuse to give their consent. After Josiah hears a rumor of other Chinese men successfully enlisting on the east coast, he takes a train to Toronto and signs up to be a paratrooper. After training, he is sent to England and takes part in the invasion of Normandy. Fighting his way through France, Holland, and Germany, Josiah transforms from a raw recruit to a veteran soldier. Along the way, he sees comrades die horribly and witnesses barbaric acts, but he never loses sight of his ultimate goal: to be worthy of Poppy. The author successfully combines the entertainment of an old-fashioned war story with a crystalline view of the period’s racism, offering a genuinely touching romance between Josiah and Poppy and visceral scenes of training and battle. Fans of WWII fiction will devour this. (Feb.)