Our Last Goodbye

In Dickson’s wrenching WWII novel (after The Orphan Sisters), a nurse faces hardships and discovers enduring love. In 1943, May Robinson, 25, works at a factory in South Shields, England, when her mother is killed in a trolley accident. Her sorrow grows after she visits her eight-year-old son, Derek, in Hexham, where he was sent to be safe from the bombings. Derek was raised by May’s mother and led to believe May was her sister to save May’s reputation as an unwed mother, and he wants to stay in the countryside. As May embarks on a new career as a nurse and debates whether to tell Derek the truth, she hears about the death of Derek’s father, Billy, in battle, and meets hospital porter Richard Bentley, a conscientious objector with whom she begins a relationship. May struggles to reconcile her attraction to the kind man with the thought that he took the easy way out by not enlisting. When May learns she is pregnant with Richard’s child, she remains resolute in her decision to not give up her baby. May’s struggle to overcome adversity and loneliness adds gritty realism to the plight of working-class British people during WWII. Historical fiction fans will quickly become immersed in May’s heartwarming story. (Dec.)