Lighting the Stars by Gabriele Wills

Publisher:  Mindshadows, November 2020
Category: Historical Fiction, World War II, Historical Romance
Tour dates: May-June, 2021
ISBN: 978-1775035411
Available in Print and ebook, 477 pages

Description Lighting the Stars by Gabriele Wills

A riveting tale of a generation torn apart by war.

Tucked into the rugged Canadian wilderness of Muskoka’s majestic lake country, Merilee Sutcliffe’s peaceful town seems worlds away from the escalating conflict in Europe. But life is about to change dramatically in the Summer of 1940. As her patriotic friends and relatives leave for battle, her small town is thrust into the war machine. Merilee’s formerly tranquil skies soon roar with aircraft from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, stationed nearby to train young men determined to liberate their country from Nazi occupation.  When German Prisoners of War march into her shocked community, they become Merilee’s closest neighbours – and biggest threat.

What unfolds in her remote town and on foreign shores sets Merilee and her growing circle on a collision course with an unimagined destiny. Caught up in the chaos is Luftwaffe pilot Erich Leitner. Shot down during the Battle of Britain and transplanted to a lakeside prison in Muskoka, he discovers he has more to fear from his comrades than his captors.

While her cousin-in-spirit, Elyse Thornton, navigates the treacherous skies of Britain as a Spitfire Girl, audaciously ferrying warplanes from factories to airfields, Merilee becomes quietly entangled in her own dangerous liaisons on the home front. Caught between worlds, with conflicted loyalties and a sense of duty, she joins the Royal Canadian Air Force, Women’s Division, and soon finds herself in ground-zero London, focussing her photographer’s lens on a city under bombardment.

Far from carefree summers on the lake, struggling to survive the relentless demands and sacrifices of war, Merilee, Elyse, and their friends wonder if they dare to risk their hearts as well.

As unlikely lives intersect, ideologies and social hierarchies are challenged, loves and friendships are forged or broken, and countless heroes are made and lost.  But even those who return to the serenity of Muskoka are changed forever.

My Thoughts Lighting the Stars by Gabriele Wills

​‘Lighting the Stars’ is book 4 of ‘The Muskoka Novels saga’.  Gabriele Wills has brought WWI to the end of WWII in this beautiful series.  It is from a Canadian perspective with a vast and lively cast of characters.

In ‘Lighting the Stars’, the next generation has to step up and go to war, as their parents did in WWI. Most of the men either train pilots to fly and fight in areal combat and the women join The Royal Canadian Air Force, Women’s Division in various positions. Elyse Thornton becomes what was known as a “Spitfire” girl, delivering airplanes for combat and Merilee Sutcliffe, with her skill as a photographer is sent all over Great Briton to photograph the aftermath of bombings from the Germans and other war interests.

The story opens right before Canada enters the war. We are introduced to the character’s while they enjoy their annual summer at Lake Muskoka in Ontario. Merilee is a 17-year-old girl and spends mot of her time with her best friend Peggy.  Through their eye’s as well as the other characters, we see a carefree summer turn to getting ready for battle.  As their older male friends and relations go off to Europe to fight and some of their female friends go to fly planes, nurse, and other duties also in Europe, German POW’s move in to a prison camp, right in Muskoka.  In fact, right next door to Peggy and her parents’ house! Now the two girls can no longer swim there.

‘Lighting the Star’s is teeming with friendship, romance, action, adventure, heart breaking loss, and of course history.  I have rarely read an entire book series but The Muskoka Novels saga’ is irresistible! After each book ends, I miss the characters so much!  They are so well written that they come to life, grab the reader by the hand and yank them right into their lives.  I wish someone would buy the rights to this series.  It would make an amazing move or television series!

I don’t know if Wills will be writing a fifth book for the series but I hope so! This is my favorite book series of all time! I give it 5 plus stars!

Note, ‘Lighting the Stars’ can be read without reading the other books in the series however, there are a huge cast of characters and you may feel a bit lost at first when the older characters appear.  It is best to start with book,1.  Once you read that, you will want to read the entire series!

I received the eBook for my honest opinion.

About Gabriele Wills

Gabriele at the location where ‘Lighting the Stars’ begins

Gabriele Wills is the author of 6 highly acclaimed historical novels, including 4 in The Muskoka Novels saga set in North America, Britain, and Europe through the two cataclysmic World Wars and the seductive Jazz Age.

Her passion is to weave compelling stories around meticulously researched and often quirky or arcane facts in order to bring the past to life, especially with regard to women’s often forgotten contributions.

The first novel in her ‘Muskoka Novels’, ‘The Summer Before the Storm’ was the “Muskoka Chautauqua Reading List Winner”

Website: https://www.themuskokanovels.co
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GabrieleWills
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GabrieleWills

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Giveaway Lighting the Stars by Gabriele Wills

Print copies are open to the U.S. and Canada only. Gifted Kindle is open to the U.S only and Kobo is open to anyone who has a usable account on Kobo. It ends on June 30, 2021,midnight pacific time.

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