Kristin Hannah's The Women is an epic yet intimate, heart-wrenching novel about 21-year-old nurse Frances "Frankie" McGrath, who enlists in the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War. The social unrest in the U.S. in 1966 seems far from Frankie's sheltered life, as does armed conflict in Vietnam. Their father raised Frankie and her older brother, Finley, on stories of military service and keeps a "wall of heroes," photos of male relatives in uniform. When Finley ships out for Vietnam, Frankie discovers that nurses can also serve, and enlists. Then news of Finley's death in action arrives, and Frankie understands the danger in her choices.
Until she returns home in 1969, she will grow as a nurse and as an independent woman, strengthen friendships, and fall in love. War may be hell, but what Frankie finds when she returns home is no paradise, either. Through meticulous research and intricate character development, Hannah resurrects the voices of war's overlooked heroes: the women.