Five Years Gone

Force’s sobering standalone is a tribute to those who must wait behind as loved ones deploy in the military. Twenty-one-year-old college graduate Ava Lucas meets and falls in dizzying love with serviceman John West. They spend two blissful years together, cocooned in a world all their own. Remarkably—and implausibly—Ava has no idea John is vulnerable to deployment until the day he packs his “go bag,” kisses Ava goodbye, and heads overseas, cutting off all contact. She searches for him to no avail. Again, remarkably, Ava stays put for five years awaiting John’s return. Then she moves back to her family home in New York, begins a new life and new job, and finds new love. She’s happily engaged to marry a wonderful man, but the specter of what might have become of John still haunts her—and then he returns. Force’s treatment of grief in a state of limbo, not knowing closure, is what makes this otherwise unremarkable book worth reading. (Oct.)