The Broken Hallelujah by Wendy Adair – Book review by LAWonder10!
The Broken Hallelujah is the 2023 IPPY Bronze Medal Winner for wartime fiction from the Independent Publishers Book Awards.
The Broken Hallelujah is a heart-wrenching tale of family, the lasting impact of lies, and the human consequences of truth.
Book Details:
The Broken Hallelujah by Wendy Adair
ASIN : B0BGSHKFXR
Publisher : Bungalow Books Publishing
Publication date : October 15, 2022
Print length : 372 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : B0BFK1FBZ4
Book Description:
1969 Martin Carter’s plan is to survive his tour in Vietnam and return to his wife and newborn daughter. He refused his commission to keep from lying to his men but ultimately becomes a leader to his team and to a small group of Vietnamese villagers. He must find whoever is running drugs through the camp before he can safely get home.
2019 Robin Carter’s plan is to care for her grandmother and restart her career after a disastrous divorce. Martin’s footlocker is unexpectedly delivered to their home–he’s been missing in action for 50 years. His journals record his harrowing sixteen months in Vietnam. Robin is determined to find the grandfather she never knew before her grandmother’s memories fade.
Amazon ~
Review By LAWonder10:
The Broken Hallelujah is a story that ties the Vietnam War to today’s time period because of a lack of closure for over 1,000 families of those still missing in action.
The author does a very good job of bouncing back and forth with the time period being addressed. She also does well in portraying a portion of what went wrong in this war.
This is about a young woman raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Her husband has been missing in action for 50 years when suddenly she receives a package carrying a brief note and his belongings. The note makes a claim the grandma is certain is false. She has asked her granddaughter to find out the truth about her husband and to find his remains and bring him home.
The granddaughter, with help from two key people, sets out on this remarkable journey of truth and discovery.
The story was well-written. It steadily moved along. As it neared the end, it felt impossible to put down the book until the story ended.
The Cover Image would have been more appealing if it had not been so dark. As it was, it would not be eye-catching to “the browser”. The Title was implicated in the story a few times and was “catchy” and well-chosen.
What I didn’t like was in the beginning, the “foundation” felt awkward. Also, I feel it takes a great writer to implicate expletives without actually “spelling it out”. There were 40-50 times profanity and other crude words were mentioned. It doesn’t take a genius to know what the expletives were without actually having to hear them. Many readers would absolve from reading this book because of the language. That is a shame because it contains a very important message.
I offer a Four and a Half Stars literary rating for this book.
*This book was gifted me with no pressure to post a positive review. This is my honest review.
Meet the Author:
I began a lifelong love of reading before
kindergarten. My earliest memories include going to the library or bookmobile and bringing home a box of books…every week. I was raised on Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Wizard of Oz, Black Beauty, and other works of mystery and wonder. Not surprisingly I would work to solve mysteries and answer questions in my own writing.
My connection to words led to a career in public relations and marketing. Armed with degrees in communication, business and library science, I held senior management positions in higher education, winning numerous local, regional and national marketing awards while working at both the University of Houston and Texas Southern University.
After forty years of writing non-fiction, including a 175-page history of the University of Houston, I retired and finally turned to creating fictional worlds. With the help of a Writer’s League of Texas five-day retreat and the eighteen-month-long Online Certificate in Novel Writing program at Stanford University, I embraced both retirement and novel writing. The result of which is The Broken Hallelujah.
When I’m not slaving over my computer, I spend time in my backyard garden and with my crazy fur babies, Jade, my yappy but huggable white schnauzer, and her best friend, Yara, a gorgeous and unflappable Russian blue feline.
Currently, I’m working on a couple of mysteries. One is set at a university…involving three generations of strong women determined to clear a friend of a murder/suicide charge. I’m having a great time sending up some favorite academic places and people in my fictitious university. My forty years in academe opened many doors, introduced me to an amazing variety of characters, took me around the world from Houston to Alaska and Nigeria to Beijing, and offered many outrageous tales to provide a plethora of plots. The second is a story of a foundling who is searching for her past. She works at a tabloid newspaper searching out Elvis sightings,
I’d love to let you know when they are ready to release. Include your email in the feedback section if you are interested in hearing news about this and future books. Until then, I wish you good times and good reading.
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