The Wartime Sisters by Lynda Cohen Loigman

Two estranged sisters, raised in Brooklyn and each burdened with her own shocking secret, are reunited at the Springfield Armory in the early days of WWII. While one sister lives in relative ease on the bucolic Armory campus as an officer’s wife, the other arrives as a war widow and takes a position in the Armory factories as a “soldier of production.” Resentment festers between the two, and secrets are shattered when a mysterious figure from the past reemerges in their lives.




Ruth and Millie have been at odds with one another nearly from the moment Millie was born. Big sister Ruth tried to play with Millie, tried to read her stories, tried to interest her in games, but Millie just wasn't engaged in any of those activities. As they grew older they also grew further apart. Ruth began to resent Millie's good looks, while Millie began to feel Ruth looked down on her for her less than perfect school report cards. It didn't help that the boys Ruth wanted to date took more of an interest in Millie, or that their own parents seemed to favor Millie over Ruth as well. As the sisters move into adulthood and follow very different paths, petty resentments and their own insecurities keep them apart, even though deep down they still love each other as only sisters can. The sisters have gone their separate ways until unfortunate circumstances force them back together at the Springfield Armory.
I thoroughly enjoyed this poignant family drama and loved these sisters as if they were my own.
I received an advance copy for review.

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About the author
Lynda Cohen Loigman grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She received a B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard College and a law degree from Columbia Law School. Lynda practiced trusts and estates law in New York City for eight years before moving out of the city to raise her two children with her husband. She wrote The Two-Family House while she was a student of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. The Two-Family House was chosen by Goodreads as a best book of the month for March, 2016, and was a nominee for the Goodreads 2016 Choice Awards in Historical Fiction. Lynda's second novel, The Wartime Sisters, will be published on January 22, 2019.