Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

5.22.16   Trilogy features women pilots of World War II

WASP of the Ferry Command: Women Pilots, Uncommon Deeds (University of North Texas Press, $29.95 hardcover) is the third book in author Sarah Byrn Rickman’s trilogy on women pilots in World War II.

Rickman will sign copies of her book at the Women Airforce Service Pilots Museum in Sweetwater from 2-4 p.m. Sat., May 28.

WASP of the Ferry Command focuses on the women ferry pilots who moved aircraft from the factory to the training fields and then flew high-performance fighters (P-51s, 47s and 39s) to the docks to be shipped to Germany to escort Allied bombing raids vital to the war effort. By ferrying the planes in the U.S., the women aviators—trained in Sweetwater, Texas—freed up male pilots for overseas duty.

The other two titles in Rickman’s trilogy are The Originals: The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron of World War II and Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II.

New Adult fiction: Texas novelist Molly McAdams is the author of To the Stars (William Morrow, $14.99 paperback), the second book in her “new adult” romance series set in the small town of Thatch, Washington.

The story features Knox Alexander and Harlow Evans, who fell in love with each other the first time they met. Knox was eighteen, Harlow just fifteen and a half. They vowed to wait to consummate their love until Harlow was eighteen.

Life intervened, however, and they ended up going separate ways, but still held each other deep in their hearts. The story picks up with Harlow, at twenty-two, afraid to leave an abusive husband from an upstanding family. Knox, meanwhile, has become a fireman who still carries the torch for his first love

When they stumble across each other, their passions are rekindled and Knox vows to help get Harlow out of her increasingly violent and seemingly hopeless situation.

In a note to readers at the beginning of the book, McAdams writes, “If you or someone you know is a victim of relationship abuse, you are not alone; there is help available. Go to stoprelationshipabuse.org for more information.”

One hundred years: In conjunction with its centennial celebration this year, Lubbock-based United Supermarkets has published a colorful coffee-table book, United Supermarkets: A Century of Service by Doug Hensley, a former United employee or “team member.”

The book’s subtitle is How United Supermarkets Has Survived & Thrived for 100 Years, and Hensley is quick to note that United “enjoys the reputation it has because it believes in doing the right thing, and the right thing is always taking the high road.”

United, which was family-owned for its first ninety-seven years, became part of Albertsons in 2013, and Albertsons CEO Bob Miller penned the foreword for the book. Texas Tech Chancellor Robert Duncan wrote the afterword.

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Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is More Civility, Please. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.