I've avoided reading this book for years because I was worried it was basically a Mormon romance novel. I finally decided to buckle down and try it out, and ended up pleasantly surprised. The combination of the fictional lives of an LDS family in the 1940s with the historical events that we’re all familiar with from World War II made for a great book. LDS fiction authors, and in particular historical fiction, often fall into the trap of having characters provide huge exposition dumps, usually in conversations that feel entirely unnatural. Hughes avoids this almost entirely. Even when a lot of exposition is necessary, he allows it to happen fairly organically. The romance part of the story was a little sentimental and over-the-top, but I liked the characters enough that I didn’t mind.