These Days

In the vivid latest from Caldwell (All the Beggars Riding), two sisters reevaluate their lives while struggling to survive the Belfast Blitz during WWII. In early 1941, Emma Bell works as a volunteer for the First Aid Post, wishing she could do more for the war effort like her physician father. Her older sister, Audrey, a secretary at a tax office, quickly accepts a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Richard, who is also a doctor. But the German bombing campaign on Belfast forever alters their lives. Emma has recently fallen in love with her supervisor, Sylvia, whom she cannot find after a devastating Luftwaffe raid. Audrey, whose walk home from a dance hall after another raid provides readers with a bird’s-eye view of the destruction, questions her future with Richard, a milquetoast whom she worries won’t satisfy her. As the Germans begin to target residential areas, resulting in more loss of life, the sisters revise their hopes for the future and become determined to forge their own paths. In pared-down prose, Caldwell affects a sense of immediacy, showing the surreal and terrifying impact of the early-morning bombings via nightmarish sounds and eerie imagery. Fans of WWII historical fiction will be enthralled. (Mar.)