The Flowers in May

First Lieutenant Tom Hart flew twenty-nine combat missions over the Mediterranean and came home to Louisville in 1945 wearing a Bronze Star and carrying the baggage of a world war. Nightmares, tremors, and blackouts follow him through the front door, and the only remedy he can find comes in a bottle. As Tom chases a failing journalism career and the family moves again and again, his wife Clara reaches for prayer, patience, and common sense while their two children quietly learn to pack their lives into suitcases and hope that stability is just over the horizon.

When Tom loses his job and re-enlists only to be demoted, his resentment and self-destruction reach a breaking point. A violent episode sends Clara loading the children onto a Greyhound bus back to Kentucky, where her parents open their door with the same words they always offer: “You are as welcome as the flowers in May.”  Estranged from his family, and drowning in booze, an unexpected grace from their parish priest shows Tom another way, if he is willing to take it. The Harts must discover if faith and family are enough to get them through the aftermath of battle.

Told through the alternating perspectives of the Hart family, The Flowers in May is a story of battle fatigue and alcoholism, faith and unbreakable love, and mercy that arrives in the most unexpected form. Grounded in the early history of AA, and inspired by the author's family and the actual war diaries her grandfather helped write for his unit, this is a novel for every reader who has ever loved someone they could not save.