When Skies Have Fallen is one of my favorite historical fictionals ever. This gripping story follows the two army men Arty and Jim from their first encounter at a dance at their air force base during WWII and twenty years on as they fight for their right to love and live together. 

This truly is an epic love story that spellbinds you and touches your heart from the start. Despite the tragic events, despite the danger and fear for being discovered, despite the harassments and contempt, their deep love and affection for each other never falters. But it’s not just a story of two young men meeting and falling in love during WWII, it’s also a story about making a life after war and fighting for the right to be true to yourself and show your love for the person you have given your heart to. In war, they were heroes. After war, they could be persecuted simply because of their love for one another.

The characters in this book were amazing and so relatable. I immediately rooted for both Arty and Jim, they were so sweet and adorable and so real. I loved that the relationship developed slowly and with hesitation that felt true to the time. Showing your love for another man in those days was forbidden both by the armed forces and by law, so the mixed feelings of love and excitement with anxiety and tension was all too understandable. I also loved the secondary characters, especially Arty’s dance partner and close friend Jean, who give them help and cover. She was such a wonderful, strong, courageous and fun best friend that always stood by Arty and Jim no matter what.

I absolutely loved this book, it really is one of the greatest romances I’ve read! It’s both an important eye-opening story to tell, how gay love was forbidden and the injustice in how society treated them, and a swooning, sweet and emotional love story that took my breath away.

Rating:
5 stars

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​Author info:
Debbie McGowan

If you loved Call Me by Your Name I would actually recommend you NOT to read this book but to let things rest at the end of Call Me by Your Name. When I first heard the news about a sequel, I was so excited. I loved Call Me by Your Name and couldn’t wait to get back to Italy and the bittersweet love story between Elio and Oliver. But unfortunately, Find Me is not so much a second act for grown-up Elio and Oliver as I had hoped for. Instead, it’s more of Elio’s dad and Elio’s new relationship, than about Elio and Oliver getting back together.

The book starts off with Elio’s dad Samuel meeting the young Miranda on a train trip. It made me really sad to learn that Elio’s dad was divorced from Elio’s mother - In Call Me by Your Name they seemed like such a wonderful couple – and that his and Elio’s relationship wasn’t quite as special any longer either. But as the story evolves, the relationship between Elio and his father becomes more of the honest and supportive one they had in the first book and we get to see glimpses of Elio’s and Oliver’s future lives; how they’ve moved on, settled in new relationships, made new career choices, aged and faced new life challenges.
 
But to be honest, Find Me does not feel like a sequel, more like a standalone. If I hadn’t been dying to get a HEA of Elio and Oliver, I think I would have appreciated this book much more, but now I mostly felt frustrated and unsatisfied reading it. 

Rating:
3 stars

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