Clinton, South Carolina, November 6, 2019, 9:56 p.m.

I’ve read my share of books about World War II. I’ve read tales of combat and espionage, not to mention bios of Roosevelt, Churchill, and MacArthur. I try to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. I didn’t know a lot about the Eastern Front of Europe, where the Soviets battled the double-crossing Nazis in the fiercest, most brutal fighting of the war and, quite possibly, any other one.

Daughters of the Night Sky, by Aimie K. Runyan, isn’t about all the bloody, hand-to-hand fighting. Stalin used up so much manpower that the womenfolk were reluctantly allowed to join in, and Katya Ivanova, the daughter of a Russian aviator, learned of women’s rights the hard way, by attending flight school herself and taking to the skies in antiquated biplanes to make life difficult for the Germans. Night Witches, they were called.

Katya survived it all, but war took a horrible toll on the 588^th Night Bomber Regiment, a unit composed entirely of women. They flew the Polikarpov U-2, which had been put into service in 1928. She and her comrades flew in low over German camps, dropping their bombs while susceptible to traps set by the enemy and its almost absurdly more advanced aircraft.

To describe Daughters as an historical novel is too broad a term. It’s an historical romance, and in that genre, it succeeds. Runyan writes well, but she wasn’t overly concerned with authenticity. War takes a toll on their lives, their loves, and their psyches.

Somehow Katya perseveres, and unlike most of those who touch her life, survives. Hers is an empty triumph. Her lover, a well-born artist, goes off to war, too. They meet in school, where she first becomes his navigator. They almost run away from this war, but fate intervenes, and both return separately to the fray.

The novel doesn’t dwell much on politics. Little evidence of Stalin’s cruelty is on display, but death is perched on every rudder, fate involved in every sortie.

It’s worth a read as a romance, a yarn, and a testimony to human resolve. The technically astute will be disappointed, but it’s useful for its evocative emotions, not its gritty realism.

If you become a patron of mine, you’re supporting writing like this as well as my mostly NASCAR blogs at montedutton.com. If you’ve got a few bucks a month to spare, click here.

Another way I cobble out a living is with my books, a wide variety of which is available for sale here.

 

My eighth novel is called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Lightning in a Bottle is now available in an audio version, narrated by Jay Harper.