1945, peace, demobilization, the boys come home, blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover… Most dramatically, and unequivocally, we know that this year marked the end of the Holocaust. But how do you get a symbolic ending more convincing than Hitler’s suicide in the bunker and the Soviet capture of Berlin, followed by Hiroshima and the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri? We can hear the inspiring music as the closing titles roll. The Battle of Britain? What’s that?īut surely, at least we can agree that 1945 marked the end of the war? Over several days in early May of that year, various German forces surrendered to Allied commanders, and we can celebrate the exact day of victory as we choose.

In modern-day Russia, the approved Putin line sees the real war as only beginning in June 1941, with the Soviet-German confrontation, and everything before that “Great Patriotic War” was just squabbling between rival bands of equally malignant imperialists. As I taught the class, I regularly placed so much emphasis on the continuities from the First World War – political, but above all, military – that the two great struggles came close to merging into one. Depending on where you stand, the conflict dated from the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, or the Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1937.

When the war started is open to some debate. Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: Flirting with Disaster, Taking Shots, and Long Simmering Spring.Through the years, I have often taught courses on the History of the Second World War, which according to the original course description (which I did not create) is defined as running from 1939 through 1945. Now, bringing the war to Kiernan’s front door, Jesse has returned as the enemy, intent on winning back the widow with emerald eyes and sun-kissed hair-the beauty who has branded him a traitor. He deserts his hometown, turns against his own brother, and rides away from the woman he loves.

To follow his conscience, Jesse Cameron must sacrifice his heart. Though Kiernan marries another, a part of her will always love the rebel in blue. Then Jesse commits the one sin that Kiernan can never forgive: He abandons his roots for the Union army. The privileged daughter of a Virginia plantation owner, Kiernan Miller can’t imagine that her idyllic life will ever change-nor her days in the company of her devastatingly handsome neighbor, Jesse Cameron, a boy who returns her desire, kiss by tempestuous kiss. Heather Graham’s seductive Civil War trilogy begins with an unlikely Yankee forced to choose between loyalty to the cause and the love of a Southern belle.

One wore blue heather graham