All Other Nights by Dara Horn

Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union Army, enlisted in 1861 to escape an arranged marriage, never understanding that he could have said no.  This lack of knowledge that he could say no is a recurrent theme throughout the book.   After serving for a year, his commanders send him to New Orleans to murder his uncle, who is believed to be a Confederate spy.  After this mission, he is sent to Virginia to pursue another enemy agent.  But this time, his mission is not to murder the agent, but to marry her.  Jacob matures by the end of the book, which I enjoyed and found to be well written.  It was my third book for both the US Civil War Reading Challenge and the I Want More Book Challenge.  I rate it 4 out of 5.

Day After Night by Anita Diamant

After World War II and the Holocaust, large numbers of Jewish survivors tried to immigrate to Israel.  They were considered illegal immigrants by the British and held at Atlit internment camp.  In October 1945, the Palmach staged a rescue of over 200 prisoners.  This novel is based on that true story.

From the back of the book:  "The story is told through the eyes of four young women at the camp who survived the Holocaust:  Shayndel, a Polish Zionist; Leonie, a Parisian beauty; Tedi, a hidden Dutch Jew; and Zorah, a concentration camp survivor.  Haunted by unspeakable memories and losses, afraid to hope, the four of them find salvation in the bonds of friendship and shared experience even as they confront the challenge of re-creating themselves in a strange new country."

This is my second book for the I Want More Book Challenge (the previous books I've read by Anita Diamant were The Red Tent (my review is here) and The Last Days of Dogtown (audiobook)).  I rate this book 4 out of 5.

March by Geraldine Brooks

This is the story of Mr. March, the father in Little Women, who was a chaplain for the North during the Civil War.  He was a very idealistic man, and went to war to support his anti-slavery convictions.  Once he got to war, he became disillusioned, not about the cause, but about how blurred the lines were between right and wrong, good and evil.  I enjoyed this book much more than Little Women, in large part because the characters felt more real to me (ie, not perfect but flawed, with real feelings and emotions).  Most of the book is narrated by March, but part of it is narrated by Marmee, March's wife and the mother of their four "little women."  March had a very small part to play in Little Women, so most of the story is completely new.  But the parts that overlap Little Women remained true to the original.  Now I'm glad I read Little Women first, as I knew the characters, even if I didn't enjoy it that much.  I rate this book 4 out of 5.  It is the second book for two of my reading challenges this year:  US Civil War Reading Challenge and Off the Shelf Reading Challenge.  And it is the first book for another of my reading challenges:  I Want More Reading Challenge.