This Nearly Was Ours

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.