In the early 1930s, the U.S. government provided funding for thousands of Gold Star Mothers, women whose sons were killed in World War I, to travel to France to visit their sons' graves. April Smith's novel A Star for Mrs. Blake follows five mothers on a journey across the Atlantic to Paris and on to Verdun. Drawn together by their shared sorrow, these women come from vastly different backgrounds and situations, from an Irish maid to a Boston society matron. Accompanied by a young, idealistic lieutenant and an army nurse, the women must navigate both a foreign land and delicate social situations as they confront their own grief.
Cora Blake, a single mother from Maine, is Smith's most fully realized character, the one member of her party who sees past the distinctions of class and wealth to form deep friendships with the other women. Her fellow travelers, while interesting, are less distinct and the army personnel, particularly the general in charge of the trip, often lapse into stereotype. Unlike Smith's thrillers (North of Montana etc.), this story starts slowly and moves quietly, but she deftly portrays the effects of war on both the scarred French landscape and the mothers who lost their sons and have struggled to move on.
A meditation on loss, travel and unlikely friendships, A Star for Mrs. Blake is an unusual glimpse into a little-known slice of history. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams