Five Facts Thursday - please welcome Jana Richards

Five Facts about my novella HOME FIRES, which is set just after World War Two, and the War Brides who came to Canada:

1. Some 48,000 European women married Canadian serviceman during the war. Most were British, but some came from The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Germany.
2. These women, along with 22,000 of their children, traveled to Canada to begin their new lives between 1942 and 1947.
3. A wedding custom at that time in Britain was for the bride to carry a horseshoe made of silver paper along with the bouquet. It was a symbol of good luck.
4. There were so many War Brides the Canadian Government created a glossary of Canadianisms, which helped to translate British idioms to Canadian ones. For instance, if you had a problem with your stockings, in Canada you’d have a run in your hose, not a ladder as you would in Britain.
5. The brides crossed the Atlantic on former luxury liners that had been converted to troop carriers during the war. They landed in Halifax where special War Bride trains took them to their new homes across the country. If your husband was from the West Coast of Canada, it would mean a train ride of about a week!

HOME FIRES Blurb:

Anne Wakefield travels halfway around the world for love. But when she arrives in Canada from England at the end of World War Two, she discovers the handsome Canadian pilot she’d fallen in love with has married someone else. Heartbroken, she prepares to return to London, though she has nothing left there to return to. Her former fiancé’s mother makes a suggestion: marriage to her other son.

Badly wounded and scarred during the war, Erik Gustafson thinks he’s a poor substitute for his brother. Although he loves Anne almost from the first time he sees her, he cannot believe she would ever be able to love him as he is – especially as he might be after another operation on his bad leg.  Anne sees the beauty of his heart. The cold prairie winter may test her courage, but can she prove to Erik that her love for him is real?

HOME FIRES (e-version) is on sale for .99 cents at all major e-retailers between December 4 and 17, 2015.

Buy links:

The Wild Rose Press | All Romance Ebooks | Amazon | B & N | Bookstrand |Google Play | Kobo | iBooks | BAM