If you had asked me which book was my most hotly anticipated of the year I would probably have answered this one. No other author has done such an outstanding job of combining the feel of the 1940’s, the heroism of our fighting men, and the courage of the women on the home front with a genuine, touching love story as Ms.Sundin. The two previous books in the series were above average reads for me and I was excited to see what joys the final book would bring.

Helen Carlisle is the widow of her town’s war hero. Everyone thinks she throws herself into her volunteer work in order to get over her broken heart, but Helen is harboring a dark secret. A secret she must keep in order to ensure her son Jay-Jay, a cheerful, loving toddler, stays safe and happy. Then Lt. Ray Novak comes back into her life. Ray had been her childhood hero and can’t seem to help rescuing her even now, whether it’s from bike accidents or unwanted suitors. But can she possibly have a future with this honest, trusting man with all that she is keeping hidden – when the people who will most assuredly want to stand in their way are so very powerful in her life?

Ray Novak feels like the least of his brothers. Jack is a hot shot pilot, consistently proving his heroism in battle. Little brother Walt is a living legend having sacrificed his arm to land a plane full of men safely. But Ray has served the whole war on the home front, first training pilots and now working as a supply officer. Deep in his soul, his lack of combat experience chafes at him. But there are advantages to being home, such as the chance to be around the lovely widow Carlisle. With several broken engagements behind him, Ray knows he is not the smoothest man around women. But he feels he and Helen would actually suit perfectly. Then Helen begins sending him hot and cold signals. Is she ashamed to be dating a man who has never seen combat when he first husband died in battle? Or is there something going on here that he doesn’t know about?

In many ways this book met all my expectations – and exceeded them. I normally dislike pastor heroes, but Ray is awesome. He is a real person, not just a mouthpiece for the author’s beliefs. Faith is an important part of his life but he is not a perfect christian, nor a perfect man. I liked that his growth wasn’t just spiritual but emotional and personal. He needed to be not so much at peace with God as at peace with himself and who God wanted him to be. Ray showed what I call “real people faith”, the kind of faith that understands stumbling, questioning and wrong turns.

Helen is a good character too. She needed a lot of growth to get into her full strength, but she was a caring person, a loving mother and great sister. I liked that she was a (mostly) unapologetic Martha type character – she was a doer and worker, and embraced that fact in herself. She also does some self-introspection through out the novel and works out why she behaves as she does. I always like a character doing that – I think it shows maturity and self-awareness, both favorite traits of mine in a heroine.

Another met expectation was the early portion of the courtship. Ray and Helen are actually perfect for each other. They are both gentle people, dedicated to doing good for those around them. Ray plans to be a pastor after the war and has already trained for it. Helen, with her heart for charity work and organizational abilities, is perfect for a pastor’s wife. Their love is based on mutual respect and mutual attraction. Everything should be on target for them to have an easy courtship and marriage, but Helen’s secrets slowly begin to implode in her life – and his. When a conversation is misconstrued, things get quickly out of hand. This shake up in the plot worked fairly well; it was needed since no courtship can proceed without any hiccups, and I liked some of the results that came about.

One more joy of the novel is that we get to spend some time with the couples from the previous books. Allie and Walt both make appearances as do Ruth and Jack. I would have liked more time with them, but the time I got was of high quality and really forwarded their stories. Loved, loved, loved that.

As mentioned before, the book handles the faith issue well. On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being a book that barely mentions faith and ten being a book that pounds you over the head with it, I would put this book at about a five. Faith is an intricate part of who the characters are and how they run their lives, but the book is not just about that. It interweaves their faith into their reality, and the novel stays focused on the love story and the characters’ individual growth.

My disappointments in the book were the fact that the two spent so much time apart and that Helen’s secret reflected so badly on people we already knew. I could not bring myself to like Helen’s parents, who essentially told her and her sister never to ask for help once they were married, and I felt that Ray’s father looked especially bad thanks to some of the decisions he made with the Carlisle family. I understood why these things were necessary for the plot, but I felt that they detracted from my overall enjoyment of the book.

These quibbles aside I think this is a really good inspirational romance novel. I hope that the end of this trilogy does not mark the end of our encounters with the Novak family. I’ve grown to love them all over the course of the books.