Nuala Calvi

Gi Brides: the Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love; Library Edition Nuala Calvi Unabridged edition

From the bestselling authors of The Sugar Girls, ''GI Brides'' weaves together the reallife stories of four women who crossed the ocean for love, providing a moving true tale of romance and resilience.

The ''friendly invasion'' of Britain by over a million American GIs caused a sensation among a generation of young women deprived of male company during the Second World War. With their exotic accents, smart uniforms, and aura of Hollywood glamour, the GIs soon had the local girls queuing up for a date and the British boys off fighting abroad turning green with envy. But American soldiers offered something even more tantalizing than a ready supply of chocolate, chewing gum, and nylon stockings. Becoming a GI bride provided an escape route from Blitzravaged Britain, an opportunity for a whole new life in America a country that was more affluent, more modern, and less classridden than home.

Some seventy thousand GI brides crossed the Atlantic at the end of the war to join the men who had captured their hearts but the long voyage was just the beginning of a much bigger journey. Once there, the women would have to adapt to a foreign culture and a new way of life thousands of miles away from family and friends, with a man they hardly knew out of uniform. Some struggled with the isolation of life in rural America or found their heroic soldier was less appealing once he returned to Civvy Street. But most persevered, determined to turn their wartime romance into a lifelong love affair and prove to those back home that it really was possible to have a Hollywood ending.