Book Review: Every Tear a Memory by Myra Johnson

The Great War may be over, but Joanna Trapp still fights a battle within.

Every Tear a Memory is the third novel in Myra Johnson’s series Till We Meet Again and takes place about a year after the Great War ends. I’ll say here and now it’s my favorite of the three stories.

Since reading the first book in the series, When the Clouds Roll By, I’ve had a desire for Thomas Ballard to experience a happy-ever-after. He seemed like such a lonely man. 

Thomas manages the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The younger son of an overbearing society matron, he’s content with his job, but his personal life lacks the type of happiness shared by others around him: marriage and a family.

He believes he’s second best to his brother, second best in his mother’s eyes, and second best when attempting to enlist in the war. When he takes his future into his hands, grows a beard, and is told he looks like his father, he begins to see that:

He was more than Gil’s kid brother or his parents’ younger son. More than a weakling who couldn’t pass the army’s health assessment. More than a stodgy, stuck-in-a-rut hotel manager.

Joanna Trapp has a reputation for adventure. She escaped her unhappy home life and spent several years in France. During the war, she was with the Signal Corps, fell in love, and lost her sweetheart to battle. She never planned to return to Hot Springs, but a family obligation drives her home.

There must be something special with the name Joanna right now. I’ve read two or three books lately with a heroine by the that name (and/or Jo). It’s even the name of the heroine in my upcoming novel. But let’s get back to this story, shall we? 🙂 

Joanna deals with what might be considered a form of survivor’s guilt. It keeps her from giving up her lost love for a new one, no matter how attracted she is to Thomas, and affects her relationship with God. 

This is a story of two people whose friendship and love help heal old wounds. In Every Tear a Memory, the story is deep, the characters sympathetic, the historical setting realistic, the conflict believable, and the ending satisfying. In fact, I highly recommend the whole series.  

Click the links for my reviews of When the Clouds Roll By and Whisper Goodbye.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This book came to me free from the author and the publisher, Abingdon Press, with the hope that I would mention it on this blog. There was no requirement for me to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed above are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.