In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Dorothy Thom joins the Women’s Army Corps. Women from all levels of society work together to navigate a military segregated by race and gender. In early 1945, Dorothy and 800 African American WACs cross the turbulent North Atlantic to their post in England. Their orders are to process the mail sent to GIs from their loved ones back home. They arrive to find mail stockpiled for over two years in warehouses and airplane hangars. Many pieces are in poor condition, and the names are illegible. In England and France, the WACs traverse a landscape of unimagined possibilities. With their outlooks changed forever, they return to the United States as the catalysts for change in America and build lives that transcend anything their ancestors ever dreamed of.

In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Dorothy Thom joins the Women’s Army Corps. Women from all levels of society work together to navigate a military segregated by race and gender. In early 1945, Dorothy and 800 African American WACs cross the turbulent North Atlantic to their post in England. Their orders are to process the mail sent to GIs from their loved ones back home. They arrive to find mail stockpiled for over two years in warehouses and airplane hangars. Many pieces are in poor condition, and the names are illegible. In England and France, the WACs traverse a landscape of unimagined possibilities. With their outlooks changed forever, they return to the United States as the catalysts for change in America and build lives that transcend anything their ancestors ever dreamed of.

The acclaimed author of THE SECRET WOMEN and THINGS PAST TELLING returns with an engrossing historical novel about a little-known aspect of World War II --- the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only Black WACs to serve overseas during the conflict. 

In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Dorothy Thom --- Spelman graduate, librarian and Francophile --- joins the Women’s Army Corps wanting to do her part for the war effort. Longing for adventure, she has one question for the recruiter: “Do you think I’ll get to go abroad?”

As Dorothy and her sister WACs discover, life in the Army is an adventure filled with unexpected deprivations and culture shock. Women from all levels of society, secretaries, teachers and sharecroppers, work together to navigate a military segregated by race and gender. At boot camp, the “colored girls” are separated for processing. At Ft. Riley, the women’s barracks are rustic and heated by coal-burning pot-bellied stoves while German POWs spend their incarceration in buildings with central heat and hot water.

In early 1945, Dorothy and 800 African American WACs cross the turbulent North Atlantic to their post in England. Their orders are to process the mail sent to GIs from their loved ones back home, an estimated 17 million pieces. The women arrive to find mail stockpiled for over two years in warehouses and airplane hangars, many pieces in poor condition, the names illegible. 

In England and France, the WACs traverse a landscape of unimagined possibilities. With their outlooks changed forever, they return to the United States as the catalysts for change in America and build lives that transcend anything their ancestors ever dreamed of.

NO BETTER TIME illuminates a love of country and duty that has been overlooked until now.

Audiobook available, read by Janina Edwards

Growing up a headstrong Irish Catholic girl in a notoriously tough housing estate in Northern England, Moya Hession-Aiken has just one goal --- to live a rich, creative life in America. SHOULDER tells the story of the riotous and hilarious path from her boisterous but warm family back home to her education in London and her escape to New York in the 1980s, where she finds everything she’s looking for --- exciting jobs in the fashion industry and later at MTV --- but where she also meets the man of her dreams, only to lose him to cancer following the birth of their son. Told in a voice that is equal parts Alan Bennett and Frank McCourt, this is a story about the thrill of taking chances and the unbearable pain of loss, as well as a profound meditation on what it takes to survive and what it means to care for others.

Growing up a headstrong Irish Catholic girl in a notoriously tough housing estate in Northern England, Moya Hession-Aiken has just one goal --- to live a rich, creative life in America. SHOULDER tells the story of the riotous and hilarious path from her boisterous but warm family back home to her education in London and her escape to New York in the 1980s, where she finds everything she’s looking for --- exciting jobs in the fashion industry and later at MTV --- but where she also meets the man of her dreams, only to lose him to cancer following the birth of their son. Told in a voice that is equal parts Alan Bennett and Frank McCourt, this is a story about the thrill of taking chances and the unbearable pain of loss, as well as a profound meditation on what it takes to survive and what it means to care for others.

Growing up a headstrong Irish Catholic girl in a notoriously tough housing estate in Northern England, Moya Hession-Aiken has just one goal --- to live a rich, creative life in America.

SHOULDER tells the story of the riotous and hilarious path from her boisterous but warm family back home to her education in London and her escape to New York in the 1980s, where she finds everything she’s looking for --- exciting jobs in the fashion industry and later at MTV --- but where she also meets the man of her dreams, only to lose him to cancer following the birth of their son.

Told in a voice that is equal parts Alan Bennett and Frank McCourt, this is a story about the thrill of taking chances and the unbearable pain of loss, as well as a profound meditation on what it takes to survive and what it means to care for others.