Home Front (Hannah)

Book Reviews
Jolene Zarkades has dedicated her life to two things: her family and her career as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. Her 12-year marriage to Michael, however, is crumbling. A defense attorney, Michael has thrown himself into his work to cope with the death of his father and his feelings of distance from Jolene. After he misses their daughter's track meet, Michael and Jolene get into a fight that results in him declaring that he doesn't love her anymore. The next day, Jolene finds out that her unit is being deployed to Iraq; Michael is furious that she is leaving him to juggle single parenthood and his practice, and they part on bad terms. Her letters home to their daughters exclude the harsh truths of war, but while she's away, Michael starts to come to terms with how much he has taken for granted. Jolene's tour of duty is cut short when her helicopter goes down, killing a young man, severely injuring Jolene, and leaving her best friend Tami in a coma. When Jolene returns home, she must cope with her own anger, guilt, fear, and frustration. Michael begins to understand her situation as he defends a Marine whose PTSD made him kill his wife. Slowly, Jolene heals, beginning the process of coming to terms with her life. By reversing traditional expectations, Hannah (Night Road) calls attention to the modern female soldier and offers a compassionate, poignant look at the impact of war on family.
Publishers Weekly


Hannah's (Night Road; Winter Garden) latest is an emotional, honest, and timely read that depicts the life of a military family from a female perspective. Jolene is a mother who protects her two children, Betsy and Lulu, with ubiquitous positivity, but she can't preserve her marriage with Michael and their growing distance and fading love. Michael has never embraced Jolene's job as a helicopter pilot in the Army National Guard, and their relationship grows more strained when Jolene and her best friend are deployed to Iraq. Over the course of her tour, Jolene is understandably changed—she's broken both physically and mentally when she returns home. And Michael, too, has changed. Can they try to love again with this new life before them? Verdict: Hannah has written a remarkable tale of duty, love, strength, and hope that is at times poignant and always thoroughly captivating and relevant. Buy multiples for her many fans. —Anne M. Miskewitch, Chicago P.L
Library Journal


The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.... Jolene "Jo" Zarkades...returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear.... Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah's default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war's aftermath.
Kirkus Reviews