Book Review, Blog Tour, and Giveaway: "Soar Like Eagles" by Terri Wangard

About the Book

Carol becomes a Red Cross doughnut girl, serving GIs and boosting their morale. Convinced wartime romances are doomed to disappointment, she attempts to avoid entanglements. She didn’t plan on Chet, the navigator who tempts her to throw caution to the wind.

Chet’s father and brothers always belittled him. As a squadron lead navigator, he longs to prove them wrong. He’s already been offered a terrific job with PanAm after the war. First he must survive his combat tour. Will he even have a future?

About the Author

Terri Wangard grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, during the Lombardi Glory Years. Her first Girl Scout badge was the Writer. These days she is writing historical fiction, and won the 2013 Writers on the Storm contest and 2013 First Impressions, as well as being a 2012 Genesis finalist. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in library science, she lives in Wisconsin. Her research included going for a ride in a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. Classic Boating Magazine, a family business since 1984, keeps her busy as an associate editor.

 Guest Post from Terri Wangard

For the third book of my World War II series, I needed something to involve my main character with. At first I considered the train canteens, where volunteers laden with food met troop trains crisscrossing the country. That wouldn’t work though, because my navigator was heading overseas and I didn’t want a correspondence relationship. Besides, someone else had already written a novel about the canteens. Then I discovered the Red Cross clubmobiles.

The American Red Cross operated canteens on the home front and clubs and clubmobiles overseas during World War II to provide soldiers and sailors with a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a bit of friendly conversation that gave the men a familiar connection with home.

Around the world, the Red Cross staffed permanent service clubs, traveling clubmobiles, and other recreational facilities. Service clubs provided refreshments, accommodations, and comfort and recreational activities wherever American troops were located overseas. In major cities, they offered meals, recreational activities, overnight accommodations, and barbershops and laundries. Some also provided sightseeing opportunities, touring museums, castles and cathedrals, and attending local theaters and movie houses.

Smaller clubs provided food in outlying areas near American military camps. The Red Cross also operated rest homes, often in stately manor houses in rural, tranquil locations overseas, for service personnel needing respite from the pressures of war.

To serve military sites in isolated areas, the Red Cross used clubmobiles in Great Britain in 1942 and later, the continent. Staffed by three American Red Cross women and a local driver in England, they visited several sites in a day, bringing refreshments, entertainment, and a touch of home to the troops in a foreign land. They used converted half-ton trucks and single-deck London buses, which featured kitchen equipment for making and serving doughnuts and coffee. Some carried phonographs and loudspeakers to provide music for the troops, and the women often danced with the servicemen. On the continent, the women had to drive and service their trucks.

Many American servicemen had never traveled far from home. At Red Cross clubs and clubmobiles in far-flung places around the globe, they received a connection to home and civilian life through friendly American women and familiar food. The Red Cross served a basic purpose of raising morale.

 Carol Doucet of Soar Like Eagles was proud to be a Red Cross Doughnut Girl.

My Thoughts

I enjoyed all three books in this series, but I think Soar Like Eagles" was my favorite. I liked the overlap between the three books. I kept flipping back and forth between the books to read the parallel passages. One thing I did notice doing this was that in "No Neutral Ground", it had Paul parachuting out of his plane on May 8 when the other two had it on May 27. With the first two books, the characters were separate for the first half of the book and then the second half was when they were together. This one was the opposite with Carol and Chet being around each other for the first half and then separated when Carol goes to France. Reading this book was like a history lesson with all the things going on in the B-17 bombers as well as on the ground in France. I loved the Epilogue at the end, although I cried when I read it. I am going to miss visiting Ridgewell Air Base.

Blog Stops

December 8: Blossoms and Blessings

December 8: Artistic Nobody

December 9: Daysong Reflections

December 9: Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations

December 10: D’S QUILTS & BOOKS

December 10: Bukwurmzzz

December 11: Petra’s Hope

December 12: Chas Ray’s Book Nerd Corner

December 12: The Power of Words (spotlight)

December 13: A Baker’s Perspective

December 14: Carpe Diem

December 14: Reading Is My SuperPower

December 15: Bigreadersite

December 15: Quiet Quilter

December 16: Christian Bookaholic

December 17: A Path of Joy

December 18: Jeanette’s Thoughts

December 18: Karen’s Krayons

December 19:  Simple Harvest Reads (Spotlight)

 December 19: A Greater Yes

December 20: Moments Dipped in Ink

December 21: Bibliophile Reviews

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Terri is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card and a signed paperback copy of Soar Like Eagles. Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries! https://promosimple.com/ps/aa5f

"Soar Like Eagles" is available in Kindle edition:

• File Size: 2919 KB
• Print Length: 312 pages
• Publisher: Celebrate Lit (December 2, 2016)
• Publication Date: December 2, 2016
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B01M4OD0V9

I received a free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own and voluntarily given. No compensation was received.