To Face the Sun

by Frances Patton Statham

They called her Sunny. She was a spirited Navy nurse with iridescent blond hair...the gently-bred daughter of a brigadier general...the graciously beautiful Amanda Fitzpatrick.

Assigned to the hospital ship Good Hope, Sunny found her work inspiring and challenging -- until Alex Ramsey, a British diplomat, arrived on board bloody, unconscious, and in need of tender care.

They tried so desperately to scorn each other -- the proud young nurse and the haughty, handsome nobleman -- little suspecting the hot, war-filled winds of the South Pacific would sweep them together yet again on a small, sun-soaked island called Guadalcanal.

There, amid the teeming explosions of war, their love flamed into an anguished blaze, battling the dread of an unpromised tomorrow....

Genres: World War II

393 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good WWII historical romance set in the Pacific between an American nurse working on a hospital ship and an aristocratic Englishman doing some stealth work on behalf of His Majesty King George. There were plenty of realistic details about the era to make it very lifelike, and for the most part, the pace was very nicely set, making for a riveting read. Unfortunately, things got a bit ridiculous and tedious in the last quarter when the protagonists are stuck hiding in an isolated island overtaken by the Japanese army and strangely, an inordinate amount of attention is given to heroine's recently widowed mother, who is being wooed by an Australian cattle king straight out of a Margaret Way story.

Ultimately, the plot was driven by too many improbable coincidences and implausibilities for me to be fully invested in it including a bizarre episode where hero, dressed in full Scottish regalia and exotic bird feathers has to fight the chief of a native tribe who is coveting the heroine's Blonde beauty as his next shrunken head trophy.

If that was an attempt at comic relief, it fell way off. Though I did chuckle a lot at the fact that flotation devices on the army ships were called Mae Wests :)

[Olnega · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book, the first one is Phoenix Rising )

It was a bit strange but very enjoyable: a World War II setting written in the style of a vintage romance/BR

Spoiler…

The book lost one star for bringing up the heroine’s mother and giving her a second romance. It was very short and shallow, and totally pointless—wasting (killing) the hero from the first book for what? It ruined it for me.