Stranger on the Home Front is officially out! A middle grade novel set in WWI California, it tells the story of a mixed-race South Asian girl trying to navigate new revelations about her father’s involvement in the Hindu-German Conspiracy and keep her friendship with her German-American BFF alive as nationalism rises.
You can buy it in paperback and hardcover at the following links:
and at Amazon below:
Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This is the heartbreaking though not ultimately tragic story of Margot Allen, a vicar’s daughter in 1919 who accidentally became pregnant at sixteen and whose son is now being raised as her younger brother. Meanwhile, the father, formerly Missing in Action in WWI, returns, and nineteen-year-old Margot still hasn’t told him what really happened or why she stopped speaking to him. Over Christmas, she gets a second chance to determine the course of her life, but can she overcome her fear to tell her maybe-ex-boyfriend that he’s a father, and can she reveal the truth and raise her own child without irreparably hurting her mother–who lost her own baby a few years ago?
There’s a lot of exposition that could probably have been handled more smoothly, though some of it is necessary as major events in the storyline took place years before the book starts. Margot is an unusual YA protagonist. She doesn’t have any big dreams or strong interests even before the depression that comes with her unwanted pregnancy and the trauma of giving up her child. She’s pretty and social and her intelligence is mostly ignored by others, but she doesn’t stress it herself. She was a child before she had her baby and her new adult self is a mess of hurt; her pain is her defining feature. She “funks” telling her boyfriend when he first returns, and is trying to figure out if she dares try again.
But she’s very real despite the vagueness of her character in many ways. The novel totally immerses you in Margot’s head over the course of a fateful Christmas break, and doesn’t provide any easy answers to Margot’s dilemmas. Nor does her brother Stephen have a closed arc–his dissatisfaction and trauma after his wartime service is left open, as many things in life are. Margot’s lover Harry is almost too good to be true, but he has complex feelings of his own. The ending is neither completely happy nor hopeless; it’s a bit abrupt but fits with the realness and messiness of the whole experience. I was crying by the end of the book. Despite some of the overly expository and simple style of writing, it was incredibly moving.
Here’s the cover for my World War I middle grade novel, Stranger on the Home Front, featuring a young Punjabi-American girl whose father is caught up in the Hindu-German Conspiracy trial.
Image description: a young girl holding a newspaper that says WAR!, walking in front of a classroom chalkboard with an American flag over it.
Book description: It’s 1916, and Europe is at war. Yet Margaret Singh, living an entire ocean away in California, is unaffected. Then the United States enters the war against Germany. Suddenly the entire country is up in arms against those who seem “un-American” or speak against the country’s ally, Great Britain. When Margaret’s father is arrested for his ties to the Ghadar Party, a group of Indian immigrants seeking to win India’s independence from Great Britain, Margaret’s own allegiances are called into question. But she was born in America and America itself fought to be freed from British rule. So what does it even mean to be American?
STRANGER ON THE HOME FRONT, a middle grade novel dealing with the impact of the Hindu-German Conspiracy Trial and the nationalism of WWI-era America, will appear from Jolly Fish Press on September 1, 2020. I love my half-Punjabi protagonist, Margaret, who slowly learns to stand up for her beliefs, and her German-American best friend Bettina who’s dealing with her own issues that Margaret can’t see. And of course, it was a pleasure to delve into a less famous aspect of the Indian independence cause.
You can preorder from Amazon here. Here’s the summary:
It’s 1916, and Europe is at war. Yet Margaret Singh, living an entire ocean away in California, is unaffected. Then the United States enters the war against Germany. Suddenly the entire country is up in arms against those who seem “un-American” or speak against the country’s ally, Great Britain. When Margaret’s father is arrested for his ties to the Ghadar Party, a group of Indian immigrants seeking to win India’s independence from Great Britain, Margaret’s own allegiances are called into question. But she was born in America and America itself fought to be freed from British rule. So what does it even mean to be American?
I have had the privilege of reading this book in successive drafts, and it has only gotten better.
Based on the story of the Women’s Battalion of Death in WWI Russia, it follows Katya, an officer’s daughter who volunteers for the regiment. Amber Lough, the author, is a veteran of the Iraq War and writes clear, compelling battle sequences as well as fleshing out the characters so that their travails break your heart. The friendship between Katya and her buddy Masha, as well as Katya’s relationship with her deserter brother Maxim, stands out as extremely well done, and the historical figure of the regiment’s leader and founder, Maria Bochkareva, becomes a compelling character as well. I had a few quibbles with some of the political setting in terms of the Russian Revolution (as usual, not enough screen-time for non-Bolshevik socialists), but the character of Sergei, a Bolshevik activist who wants Katya to desert for both personal and political reasons, was also very well done.
The ending and the last line broke my heart, as they should have.
I had issues with the book recommendations at the end–Richard Pipes wrote the single worst book on the revolution that I have had the misfortune of reading, and it is recommended here–but Lough’s research is strong. Katya’s political confusion is realistic for the era and her age, although I wasn’t quite sold on some of her contradictory actions.
I want a sequel very badly but also can’t bear the thought of these characters living through the brutal Russian Civil War, so I would say Lough did a great job in both telling a compelling story and attaching me to the characters.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Amber Lough’s debut novel The Fire Wish, a Middle Eastern-set fantasy novel which I found pedestrian. However, in interviews, she’s revealed the topic of an upcoming book, and it couldn’t be more fascinating.
Though they’re less famous than their WWII sisters, a number of Russian women fought in WWI under the Provisional Government (the government that came after the revolution but before the Bolsheviks). They even had their own units, including the above mentioned Women’s Battalion of Death (“of death” meaning they had sworn not to surrender).
The first woman to serve in the Russian armed forces was Maria Bochkareva, whose story you can read about here.
Anyway, Amber Lough is writing a novel about the female soldiers of WWI Russia. She’s a vet herself, which raises my expectations for the book.
Can’t wait to find out title, release date, etc.
Maya Chhabra 
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