An "absorbing" and "gripping" historical novel about two friends in the South whose fates are at the mercy of the unforgiving landscape of WWII.

"While war cuts its grim path through this novel, the main characters battle their own demons?unexpected, unsettling and uplifting by turn." - Kenith Trodd, TV and Film Producer

Two young women come of age in New Orleans, eager to throw off the Depression. For a brief moment in 1939, the world appears to be their oyster. Claire is beautiful; Myra is brainy. But when Pearl Harbor jolts the country, men rush to enlist, women flood the work force?and the two friends scramble to find purpose.

Myra takes up a civilian post at a military camp. Claire is snapped up by Naval Intelligence to track U-boats in the Gulf. Meanwhile, Myra's childhood chum Frederick ships out to Europe; Claire's presumed intended, Richard, reports for duty in the Pacific.

While war rages abroad, the home front becomes its own battleground. Claire falls for a mysterious young man named Tomas, a Jewish immigrant with a complicated past. Although his ardor is no less than hers, he is eventually fingered as an enemy alien. Myra carries a torch for Claire's officer brother Addison, who commands a carrier in the Pacific. Through the men's letters from afar and their own challenges at home, the two friends learn how baffling, and brutal, war can be.

And no one is left unscathed.

"Weaving her strong cast of characters in a landscape with its own particular atmosphere, the author crafts each story with a masterly hand and without cliché. The book constantly surprised me." - Wendy Oberman, Playwright and Novelist

"The novel reminds us that the shadows of history are never far behind. Absorbing and gripping to the final page, it was one of the rare books that I've read this year that even when it ended, I didn't want to put down." - Neil Gader, Magazine Editor

"Guider is a native of the Deep South, and she wields an authoritative "spoon," cooking it all up with a rich gumbo of locations and characters who add distinct and varied flavors." - Janet Stilson, Author and Journalist

"The author made it easy to empathize with the changing lives of the characters through and beyond war's end, alternately relishing or regretting their eventual fates." - S.A. Maratex, Producer

"The author blends careful attention to history with a literary territory she knows well?a changing culture in the South as World War II unfolds." - Patricia Frith, Entertainment Executive