Jaclyn W. (unidiverse) reviewed on 3/31/2010

Set in Idaho in 1943, in the middle of World War II, four women with four very different stories commit to be there for one another. Margo and Dottie King, mother and daughter, Lucy Anderson, and Penny Maxfield create the Victory Club to help other families whose loved ones are also fighting in the war. The women ride the same bus together to their jobs at Gowen Fields, their local military base. They meet for lunch every weekday and then ride the same bus to their perspective homes.
Margo and Dottie live together in a small house. Margos husband divorced her and left her to raise two young children by herself. Margo, determined that her children will not make the same mistakes she did when she was young, has raised her son and daughter in a godly home and made sure that they have followed all of Gods laws. Dottie, not yet twenty, has a deep relationship with God, which shows even at a distance. Dotties boyfriend, Greg, shares the same kind of relationship with God that Dottie has. They planned to get married right after high school but waited at the insistence of Dotties mother, Margo. Before they could get married, Pearl Harbor was bombed and Greg signed up for the military, but not before they succumbed to one night of passion.
Lucy was orphaned at eighteen with no other family to turn to. Like Dottie, Lucy shares a deep relationship with God, visible to all. Lucy met her husband, Richard in her late twenties. They were married two years after their first date and shared one night as husband and wife before Pearl Harbor was bombed. Lucy hasnt seen her husband in over a year and constantly combats the loneliness of her apartment when she goes home.
Penny doesnt feel like she has that much in common with the other women. Her husband is at home, not fighting in the war like all of the other men his age. A week before Pearl Harbor was bombed, Stuart Maxfield fell off of the ladder and now lives with constant back pain, or so the doctor tells her. Penny also doesnt have a relationship with God like the other women. She thinks her husband is lying about his back to get out of serving in the war. Not only does she have to work, to keep food on the table and the medical bills paid, but she also has to go home and be a wife and a mother to two young children. This is not what she thought she would be doing at the young age of twenty-five, she is too young to be tied down.
This book was such a great story, I wish the author had written more and continued the story. A former military wife myself, I felt like I could really relate with the characters and the feelings they dealt with. This story was a great illustration of what it means to trust God. It is easy to trust God when things are going your way but when things are unpredictable especially the lives of your loved ones, it becomes harder to trust that God is in control. I would recommend this book to everybody.

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