Smith Family

Not all of war's destruction takes place on the battlefield.

Becoming Mrs. Smith is a novella told in scenes, not chapters — over fourteen years, the way memory holds onto a life: vivid in places, quiet in between. It carries you back to pre-war, small-town America, where a young couple's love story begins to unfold.

Violet's heart flutters from the scarlet fever she survived as a child, and it beats faster at the sight of John Smith, the man she plans to marry. America is entrenched in WWII, and when John enlists, Violet is certain she won't ever forgive him for dashing their dreams. As the realities of war slowly overtake her life, Violet's days are filled with uncertainty and grief. The world she knows is coming apart. Her faith in John is next.

Becoming Mrs. Smith is a novella of women's historical fiction — a home-front story of a woman fighting to hold on to a love that war and illness both threaten to take. If you like quiet courage and stories that ache in the best way, you'll want to meet Violet.

Calla has spent her whole life waiting for her father to notice. He's spent fifteen years too grieved to look.

South Dakota, 1949. WWII veteran John Smith has already buried the great love of his life. Grieving, overwhelmed, and desperate to keep his two small children fed and clothed, he remarries — certain this is where his luck finally turns. It isn't.

Washington State, 1964. Sixteen-year-old Calla runs the household her stepmother won't, raising her younger siblings while counting the days until she's old enough for college and gone for good. Then the money set aside for her future disappears — and so does her way out.

A Man Called Smith is a women's historical fiction novel and the third book in the Smith Family Saga. If you like dual-timeline family sagas, morally complicated silences, and endings that are honest rather than easy, you'll want to meet Calla.