Lovely War

When Hazel and James first see each other at a party in London in 1917, the Great War is just getting started. He's a recently minted soldier with aspirations of becoming an architect; she's a bashful but gifted musician. Their profound and instantaneous love is short-lived as James is sent to the killing fields.

Aubrey Edwards is in route to the trenches as well. A talented pianist who has performed at Carnegie Hall, he is a part of the all-African-American unit, the 15th New York Infantry, that is being transported to Europe in an effort to bring the Great War to a close. He is not thinking about love at all. However, it is prior to his seeing Belgian chanteuse Colette Fournier, who has previously endured terrible tragedy at the hands of the Germans.

Thirty years after the fortunes of these four lovers converge, in a posh Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells her husband Hephaestus and her lover Ares about their love tales. Her goal is to provide a solution to the age-old query: Why are Love and War always attracted to one other? But in her search for a resolution that would appease her envious spouse, she unearths a complex story of prejudice, pain, and music that shows how powerful love is and how war is no match for it.

Set against the treacherous backdrop of World Wars I and II, this book is a sweeping, multi-layered romance with a heavenly twist, written by the Printz Honor-winning author of The Passion of Dolssa.