Review: When a soldier comes home...will you let them in?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2013
This is a tough story to read, but an important one. Jo Beverley has left her usual genre, historical romance, and crafted a poignant sci-fi exploration of an age-old problem: what do we do with the people who have sacrificed so that we may live, we may enjoy our freedoms? The people who have sacrificed their innocence, their trust in a benevolent world, and often their health, to assure our comfort and ignorance?This is about an ordinary woman, a childhood friend of our hero, who was first afraid to love him, and then afraid to face who he'd become when he finally returned home. You experience the town's perfectly rational fears as they debate whether to allow the hero back into their lives - he could be dangerous, you know. And you don't know how it will turn out, not till the end.For anyone who hasn't read World War Z, this is a less gut-wrenching but no less affecting look at many of the same questions. What are the limits of human sacrifice, compassion and love?I don't know what the first reviewer read, but I can't imagine that it was the same novella I just finished.