Full name: Gardenias: A Novel

Author: Faith Sullivan Year: 2005 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction, Historical fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9781571310521 1571310525

A month after the United States enters World War II, the country is in upheaval -- and so is the Erhardt family. Nine-year-old Lark, her mother Arlene, and Aunt Betty are heading for San Diego, far away from Harvester, Minnesota and Arlene's shiftless husband. In the booming wartime economy, Arlene and Betty are soon at work, leaving Lark alone to explore their new neighborhood, a wartime housing project full of others with similarly uprooted lives. Away from prying eyes and small town expectations, the two women begin to forge new lives and new dreams -- dreams that Lark isn't always comfortable with. This richly detailed novel, told through Lark's observant eyes, reflects the era's tumultuous events in the everyday dramas of its memorable, finely nuanced characters. Similar books: The Empress of One by Faith Sullivan A Flock of Ships by Brian Callison The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester Mister Roberts by Thomas Heggen The Help by Kathryn Stockett A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray The Dutch House by Ann Patchett War Crimes for the Home by Liz Jensen The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson The Sunne In Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger I Am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni