The Scars We Earn, the Homes We Build - an Editorial Review of "Delivering Apple Pie"

Book Blurb:

"A kaleidoscopic tale set around World War II with an international cast of characters. Intrigue and color abound… this is well-researched fiction and the scenes feel authentic. A finely detailed war novel with an outsize cast." - Kirkus Reviews

Delivering Apple Pie interweaves the lives of several fictional characters between 1940 and 1963, from the war in the Pacific into postwar suburbia and the baby boom.

Claire forges a strong personal identity during WW2 in the Army Nurse Corps. Her sister Amy pursues elusive dreams in Hollywood. Emma is a Czech concentration camp survivor. Ginny is a spoiled American debutante. Larry and Frank are working class laborers struggling with postwar ambitions. Sakura is a nursing student in doomed Nagasaki.

These characters and many others converge in Levittown—America's first major suburban housing development—where they experience abrupt societal shifts into conformity. Women in particular are pulled from responsible wartime careers and shoehorned into more limited housebound roles.Was a woman's life to be lived in selfless service to others, or was it something she could shape into her own pursuit of happiness? For many, the all-American suburb wasn't exactly a perfect fit.

Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/D25AaT

Editorial Review:

Title: Delivering Apple Pie

Author: Bill Reichert

Rating: 4.2 Stars

"Delivering Apple Pie" by Bill Reichert is not a story about dessert, but about the bittersweet ingredients of a life- the scars we earn, the homes we build, and the resilient selves we discover when the world falls apart. At its heart is Claire Cartland, a fifteen-year-old farm girl orphaned by drought and disease in 1940, who sees nursing as her only escape from a vanished future. Bill Reichert’s sprawling, deeply humane novel follows Claire and a constellation of others including a starstruck sister in Hollywood, a Czech baker in a concentration camp, a brash Navy Seabee, as their lives are forged and fractured by World War II, then painstakingly reassembled in its bewildering aftermath. This is a poignant work of historical fiction that is less about battlefield heroics and more about the quiet, relentless work of stitching identity and community from the ragged fabric of loss.

"Claire was fifteen; Amy was three years older. Raised exactly the same, they could not have emerged more different. Where Amy expected the world to deliver her dreams, Claire hoped the world would offer her ways to be useful. How she loved participating in this vibrant connection with nature—even when life didn’t always break through, as was the case with today’s one stillborn... This would be such a natural fit for her as a nurse. Delivering human babies, that is. The mother cat clearly preferred cleaning these kids on her own so Claire took leave of the barn. Perhaps for the last time. She wondered if this feline family could sense any of the big changes closing in."

In the novel’s early pages, we meet Claire as she helps a barn cat deliver kittens, saying a silent goodbye to the only life she’s ever known since childhood. What appears to be a simple rural scene is in fact, one that is deeply revealing, encapsulating her core desire, not fame or fortune, but utility and usefulness in a world that has already taken so much from her. While her sister Amy dreams of movie magazines, Claire seeks agency through responsibility, competence, and care. Her choice to become a nurse is therefore not just a career decision, but an act of self-preservation and defiance against the helplessness she felt watching her parents die. This excerpt establishes the novel’s central theme- the search for purpose as an anchor in a chaotic world. It also signals that that purpose will steer her choices from here.

“Internal blunt trauma!” she barked. “Start a transfusion of fifteen liters.” Phil hesitated. “Our supply is running low—” “And we’re running out of time! He’s going into shock. Start the transfusion. We’ll have to worry about our stock later on.” "Five minutes. The patient was stable and out cold, giving us just enough time to stitch the artery.” Paula stacked the report and turned a big smile on Claire, the first one she’d received in weeks. “You did everything right, farm girl.” A warm satisfaction flooded through Claire; she’d arrived."

Years later, in a chaotic Pacific field hospital, a bleeding Marine is misdiagnosed. Claire, relying on a deeper instinct honed by experience, overrules a corpsman to correctly identify hidden abdominal injuries. This is the crucible where her innate empathy and sharp mind fuse into formidable skill. The moment is significant because it marks her transition from a trained nurse to a true healer, trusted and respected. It’s does not just a medical victory; it’s the moment she earns the right to her own authority, shedding the insecurities of her “backwoods” past. The war, for all its horror, becomes the unlikely forge for her unshakeable professional identity. Here, the reader is made to feel her hard-won sense of competence, as she claims her place in a world that she chose.

“Holy crap, it’s really you!” He took Claire into an embrace that held them both suspended for a timeless moment. He hadn’t yet noticed her scars. Now he would pull back and see. He held her at arm’s length and as his eyes surveyed her features, his face registered the alarm she’d anticipated. So now he did see. But he was examining her with a pronounced yet tender curiosity. He kissed her tentatively, then deeply with a passion that told her what she needed to know.Holding her tight, he whispered. “Do you hurt?”... “At this moment I’ve never felt better.”

After surviving a kamikaze attack that leaves her scarred, Claire is reunited with Larry Romano, the Seabee whose swaggering charm won her heart. His reaction to her burns is a masterclass in understated emotion. He is shocked, but immediately follows it up with a deeper, tender assessment. This scene is profoundly moving because it tests the foundation of their wartime romance against the brutal reality of visible physical scars and invisible emotional wounds. It doesn't come out as a fairy-tale moment, but a raw, human one that speaks to the novel’s honest treatment of love and damage. Here, readers are made to feel that going forward, their connection will not be rebuilt on youthful attraction, but on the acceptance of who they have each become.

Reichert’s greatest strength lies in his ensemble cast. While Claire’s narrative forms the backbone, the chapters dedicated to Amy’s cynical climb in Hollywood, Emma’s struggle for dignity in Ravensbrück, and Sakura’s shattered innocence in Nagasaki create a powerful, panoramic view of the war’s impact on women across vastly different circumstances. Their stories do not at all feel like mere subplots, rather, as counterpoints that deepen the themes of survival, sacrifice and ambition. The relationships Reichert has constructed feel authentic, particularly the warm, pragmatic bond between Claire and her mother-in-law Gladys, which offers some of the novel’s most genuine humor and wisdom amidst the surrounding turmoil. The novel’s structure, shifting across years and continents, could feel unwieldy, but Reichert manages the pacing with a veteran’s steadiness. His prose is clear, descriptive, and often quietly powerful, favoring emotional resonance over florid decoration.

"Delivering Apple Pie" by Bill Reichert will most definitely be a rewarding read for anyone who appreciates character-driven historical fiction. It feels like a story that understands that history is lived not only in headlines and battle maps, but in field hospital tents, studio casting couches, and the pristine, conformist kitchens of new suburban developments. Ultimately, it becomes a testament to the messy, painful, and glorious work of delivering the reader who may be scarred but still hopeful, that whatever comes next can be survived or even transformed into something meaningful.

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