Elizabeth Ridley

U.S. Marine Sergeant Tim Fortner survived 14 months in Vietnam as a door gunner in a CH-46 helicopter. Completing 27 strike flight missions, he was awarded the Air Medal and Bronze Star for meritorious service in combat. Like many veterans, his real battle didn't begin until he returned home, where he struggled to adjust to the "new normal" of American life in 1969, still haunted by his experiences during the nation's most unpopular war. His memoir describes his military training, his unit's harrying missions inserting and extracting troops over landing zones under enemy fire, and his four-decade struggle with service-connected PTSD.

Dayle Salvesen, a bestselling spy novelist from Wisconsin, arrives in London for a writers' conference only to be told that her best friend and former lover, Celia Frost, has died under mysterious circumstances. Or has she? There's no sign of Celia's body, and Celia's flat contains items suggesting she planned to travel. Dayle joins forces with Celia's ex-girlfriend, Nigerian-British university lecturer Edwina Adebayo, to investigate. Hampering their efforts is Detective Constable Andrea Callaway, who claims that Celia, who ran a refugee center, profited financially from her work rescuing trafficked sex slaves. The deeper Dayle and Edwina dig, the more Dayle questions not only how well she knew Celia, but also how well she knows herself.

Secret agent Sadeli, undercover merchant Umar Yunus, and ex-journalist Ali Nurdin experience love, loss, and sacrifice during Indonesia's revolution to overthrow Dutch colonialism. Early 1947: In a world still reeling from World War II, Indonesians revolt against Dutch attempts to recolonize their country. Major Sadeli of the Indonesian Army Intelligence travels to Singapore disguised as a sugar merchant, tasked with establishing naval and air routes to Sumatra and Java and securing weapons and radio equipment vital to the Indonesian revolution. His desire for Indonesia to be prosperously independent, independently prosperous, and no longer dependent on larger nations' pity, forces him to choose between personal happiness and commitment to a higher cause.