When Marjorie’s journals fall into the hands of the head of a Naval museum, the past won’t be history much longer.
San Francisco may be famous for its fog, but on a queer day, you can see forever. Gwen Lawford, skipper of the Alameda Naval Museum she’s struggling to keep afloat, thinks she’s found a first-rate first mate in Shelby Pratt, prospective preservationist. Shelby isn’t in the Navy, but she certainly has experience with Women’s Reserve, specifically where her sexual orientation is concerned. It’s something she has in common with Marjorie Banyan, a woman who served in the WAVES during World War II and whose recently exhumed journals have captured Gwen’s attention even more than Shelby has.
As Gwen delves into the diaries, she learns that Marjorie developed a war bond with Lucy Brewster, a shipyard swing shifter whose spouse was overseas. They could do it; after all, it was a woman’s patriotic prerogative to embrace a man’s job. But what happened when America’s anchors were no longer away?
Gwen wants Shelby―to help her locate the lovers whose circumstances required them to ration their happiness and rationalize their unhappiness. Shelby can relate. But she’s at sea. If she opens her heart to Gwen, Shelby will have to open her mouth to her parents and stop hiding who she is, because Gwen is not onboard with service-style secrecy. Can Shelby and Gwen reinstate the long-lost lovers’ romance? And will they take a page from Marjorie’s book and re-create it for themselves?
I salute author Robbi McCoy, who enlists readers in a grand and glorious victory of a story. With her pace smooth sailing and her prose in shipshape, McCoy takes readers on a sentimental journey over the rainbow and under the apple tree. The novel’s storylines are divinely entwined and the characters are as composed and captivating as a vintage photograph. No matter what time period they exist in, the gals in this book are, at all times, more riveting than Rosie, and you won’t want to WAVE good-bye to any of them.