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Among this year’s latest new books by military spouse authors, I found a recurring theme of strong women taking stands and making hard choices. Each story — whether true or fictional — describes people and experiences clearly distinct from one another, yet woven together by a common thread. A reflection of military life, where we find strength in our distinctions and connection in sharing our stories. For any reader, these books are gifts to keep and enjoy or to give away this holiday season.
Llano County Mermaid Club
The fifth book by novelist and Air Force wife Kathleen M. Rodgers, is a compelling story of women tested to extremes and anchored by friendship in a landscape both geographically and emotionally unforgiving. Shifting easily between past and present, this tale spans forty years in the life of a girl named Marigold. The narrative is filled with whispered secrets about her sisters, her mother, and Marigold’s best friend, Melody. Every element of this story holds enchantment: imaginative girls who grow into determined women, clues found in old letters or written on crumbling walls, and hidden sins that don’t stay that way. Hints of darkness, especially related to Marigold’s father, hover over the story, and the reader won’t be able to stop turning pages until every riddle is unraveled, including the enigma of mermaids living in the landlocked plains of New Mexico.
No Ordinary Bird
Artis Henderson’s second book about life and loss. Her first, Unremarried Widow, centers on her Army husband, Miles, a helicopter pilot who died in 2006 in Iraq. No Ordinary Bird reaches back to the defining loss of Artis’s life in 1985, the death of her father, Lamar Chester. Like Miles, he was a pilot who died in an air crash. Unlike Miles, Lamar was rumored to be a drug smuggler, spy, or both. Artis was severely injured in the crash that killed her father when she was five, but she had little memory of him and wanted to know more. She delved into court records and media reports and mined the memories of family and friends to discover and write the story her mother tried to forget. Some passages of this new memoir read like true crime, showing the author’s journalistic chops as a writer and researcher, as she digs into the cause of her father’s death. Yet every page is deeply personal, as her investigation uncovers details of her father’s life and teaches her more about her own.
Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of Military Marriage
Heather Sweeney’s book is an unusual military spouse memoir, because it’s about the author’s life after divorce from her Navy husband. It’s no secret that many military marriages do not survive — for many reasons, not all of them unique to the military. It is less known that military-connectedness tends to outlive a marriage, for good or ill. Heather, the mom of two military kids, writes “I may have been divorcing this man, but as long as he stayed in the Navy, I would never be able to divorce the military.” With frankness and humor, she writes about her journey as a single parent and a single woman rediscovering the individuality she lost track of during thirteen years of military marriage. Her book is an encouragement to any military spouse who recognizes the need to maintain identity and agency, for the sake of personal wellbeing as well as healthy family relationships.
Holding on and Letting Go: A Life in Motion
This book by Lindsay Swoboda also emphasizes the importance of individual pursuits within the ebb and flow of marriage and military life. After marrying her Marine husband, Lindsay’s dreams of becoming a dancer collided with the demands of back-to-back overseas assignments and a growing family, including having a baby while isolated during the pandemic. Lindsay writes about finding beauty in the push and pull of navigating the steps of each season. She found opportunities to dance, but always she would journal her way through loneliness, self-doubt, and anxiety. Telling her own story with candor, Lindsay encourages readers to celebrate victories big and small, to grieve when necessary, savor goodness when it appears, and when there’s music — dance, of course.
Terri Barnes is a book lover, book editor and author of “Spouse Calls: Messages from a Military Life,” based on her long-running column in Stars and Stripes. Find her online at terribarnesauthor.com.
