A Place We Knew Well - Susan Carol McCarthy

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is the second book in a row from NetGalley in which I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it (read my review of the other one here).

Despite a rather bland intro, the story really kicks off after the prologue in Chapter 1. The time is October 1962 and the place is Orlando, Florida. It came as a surprise to me that the story would use the Cuban Missile Crisis as it's backdrop. To me, this was the best part. I knew enough about the Cuban Missile Crisis to know that it happened while President Kennedy was in office, so likely 1961 or 1962 and I knew that it didn't last very long and that eventually the Soviets turned their ships around and took the missiles down (thanks Billy Joel). 

This story focuses on Wes Avery, his wife Sarah and their daughter Charlotte. Wes owns a local gas station in Orlando, just up the road from McCoy Air Force Base (it closed in 1975). A former Air Force man, Wes starts to notice a lot of firepower gathering at the base and believes something may be up. The presence of 5 U-2s at the base later confirms his suspicions. (The U-2 was a spy plane and is awesome - the pilots wear the space flight suit because it goes so high in the atmosphere). 

Wes' best friend Steve, and a Cuban exile, young Emilio also work at the station and have their own backstories to contend with. Emilio's family is stuck in Cuba, his father in prison, his mother hiding out, and his sister, later told in what I considered the most awkwardly written section of the story, raped and murdered for her parentage and privilege. While I thought it was important to show this portion of what was going on in Cuba at the time, the part where Emilio emotionally tells Wes and Steve about his sister's murder was just not as well written as the rest of the story and came out very disjointed from the rest of the prose. 

Meanwhile, Sarah is having trouble squaring the life she lives with the life she had planned for herself, a life she set aside when her older sister became pregnant not once, but twice out of wedlock. Sarah's stern parents then relied on Sarah to live a pedestrian life without taking any chances. Her early talents were squandered and she lived a life devoid of personal accomplishments. This ends up being a major problem for Sarah. 

I really appreciated the obvious research that went into the Cuban Missile Crisis sections of the story, and how well it fit with Wes' overall story arc. I thought Wes was a great character as well he was well developed and he felt very real. Charlotte, the daughter, was a bit wooden in some scenes, but her purpose was more to push the plot ahead. I don't think the epilogue did a good job setting the future tone of the novel, it came out a bit more sinister like it was setting up a mystery, but otherwise this was a solid story with great research.

4/5 Stars.