Oh hello…
Holland Literary Festival is September 12th, 2026, at the Bluestocking Bookshop.
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I’ll be there from 11am to 5pm, and I’ll be doing a “Ask an Author” Panel, hosted by Adam – The Bearded Reader. I’ll be talking about whatever people ask me about. If nothing else, I’ll tell people my secret process for perfectly reheated leftover pizza.
Book Review: Always Forward
ALWAYS FORWARD is a devastating and beautiful piece of military fiction. Truly an intense book. Okay, it’s actually a couple books combined into one for its anniversary.
Cecilia Garcia is a military vet with Iraq deployment time, like myself. Garcia wrote a story about a fictional female soldier (and yes, her gender is important in this context) named Emily. Emily’s Humvee gets hit by an IED and she is taken prisoner of war. She endures years of abuse from her captor, well after the American troops withdrew from the country, and bears several of his children.
The military assumed Emily had died in combat and told her family as much. But her daughter refused to accept that, and eventually grows up to be a civilian working in post-war Iraq, helping local villagers get vaccines and medical treatment. She’s alerted that something is off when a few local children show up for vaccinations speaking excellent English in an area where almost no one does.
This is where the story turns from bitter tragedy to hope. And I won’t go into any further detail beyond that.
And that’s all in approximately the first 20% of the book. Yeah. Shit gets crazy.
. . .
QUICK HEADS UP…
This book was a tough read in spots, not because of the writing; because of the difficult subject matter. But none if it felt gratuitous or unnecessary to the story. Garcia handles these topics in a fictional, storytelling context about as well as anyone could.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: physical abuse, sexual abuse, combat, violence, graphic depictions of combat injuries, survivor guilt, abandonment (in more ways than one…), trauma, dealing with trauma, going back to “the real world” after experiencing war, etc…
. . .
MY THOUGHTS…
I was hooked immediately. There is no slow-burn. Garcia wastes no time getting to the can’t-look-away stuff. I found myself reading in long spurts with little breaks. As I said in the video, this book is both beautiful and devastating. It deals with family dynamics under incredibly difficult, complex circumstances, as well as war and all the things that veterans carry with them. ALWAYS FORWARD is an emotional read and I recommend it to anyone who isn’t immediately put off by the trigger warnings, and is good at reading through their own tears.
Really a GREAT book.
Solid 5 out of 5.
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See ya later guys!
-CT
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