Something Beyond the Sky

Mitchell, a military spouse, looks at the lives of military wives through the eyes of four diverse women. Anne Bradley is a newlywed whose interracial marriage and status as military spouse is a hindrance to acceptance and finding a job near Bullard's Air Force base in the South. Anne befriends an unlikely trio of military wives: hedonistic and wealthy Rachel Hawthorne; anorexic Karen Bannister, who is questioning her LDS faith; and frustrated Air Force Capt. Beth Bennett, who has resigned her commission to stay at home with her rambunctious twins. Mitchell is at her strongest portraying the frustrations of women coming to grips with careers and motherhood (or infertility or pregnancy) and the challenges of military life. She is adept with flashbacks and withholds certain key bits of information until the right moment, which adds punch to the narrative. Although Mitchell has a pleasant voice, she makes Christian fiction's most frustrating mistake of incorporating too much didactic theological discussion with evangelism in mind. She also tends to overdetail some mechanics of military life in places where less might have been more. Readers will find this novel is more about the relationships of married couples than those of women friends. (Jan.)