Plot Twists & Poor Decisions: Book Review - Voices on the Wind (A Novel of Malta in WWII, Part I

This book took me completely by surprise.

I picked it up because I enjoy historical fiction, particularly anything set during the Second World War, but I wasn't expecting to become so absorbed in it. My grandfather served during the war, and although he rarely spoke about his experiences, I grew up knowing that the lives of ordinary people were shaped by events most of us can barely imagine. Perhaps that's why stories from this period have always appealed to me. In fact, I found myself reading far later into the evening than I intended on more than one occasion, which is always a good sign.

What stayed with me most wasn't the action or even the military side of the story. It was the people. There is something very moving about reading of ordinary men and women getting on with life while everything around them seems to be falling apart. The air raids, the shortages, the uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring – all of it felt very real.

I was especially fond of Candice. She has a quiet determination about her that I admired. She doesn't storm into rooms demanding attention. Instead, she gets on with her work and lets her actions speak for her. Some of the attitudes she encounters made me quite cross at times, although sadly they were probably very accurate for the period.

I also found myself looking forward to any scene involving Adrian "Warby" Warburton. What a character! The fact that he smoked so much the RAF eventually gave him an ashtray for his aircraft made me laugh out loud. Can you imagine such a thing happening today? Yet beneath those amusing stories was a man carrying out extraordinarily dangerous missions. I came away from the book wanting to know more about him, which led me down a rather enjoyable evening of reading about wartime Malta.

One thing I particularly appreciated was that the novel never felt gloomy despite the subject matter. There are difficult moments, naturally, but there is also friendship, humour, kindness, and the sense that people continue to find reasons to smile even in the darkest circumstances. For me, those moments often carried just as much weight as the dramatic scenes.

If I have one criticism, it is that there were times when I struggled to keep track of some of the military details. That is probably more a reflection of me than the book, however, as military history has never been my strongest subject.

When I closed the final page, I realised I had become quite attached to several of the characters and was sorry to leave them behind. That doesn't happen with every book.

A fascinating glimpse into a part of the war I knew very little about, told through characters who felt wonderfully human.

I have given Voices on the Wind ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Helena P. Schrader

Helena P. Schrader is the author of 21 historical novels and six non-fiction history books. She earned a PhD in History from the University of Hamburg and served as a U.S. diplomat in Europe and Africa. She has won numerous literary awards, and two of her titles—Cold Peace, the first book in the Bridge to Tomorrow series on the Berlin Airlift, and her Battle of Britain novel, Where Eagles Never Flew—achieved Amazon #1 Bestseller status in aviation and military historical fiction.

Schrader masterfully blends meticulous historical research with compelling storytelling. Her success can best be measured not by the many awards or positive reviews, but by the fact that witnesses of the history she describes praise the authenticity of her works. Battle of Britain ace, W/Cdr Bob Doe enthusiastically declared that Where Eagles Never Flew got it “smack on the way it was for us fighter pilots.” Traitors for the Sake of Humanity: A Novel of the German Resistance won recognition for its extraordinary sensitivity to a complex topic from the survivors of the military conspiracy against Hitler and the widows of some of those executed.

The dramatic siege of Malta in WWII attracted Schrader’s attention years ago, and she has visited the island several times to conduct research, visit the important sites, and gain a greater understanding of the people. As she became drawn deeper into the material, the temptation to combine a novel about the siege of Malta with another of her lifelong loves, the British Merchant Navy, became irresistible. Schrader has been an avid sailor all her life and served as a petty officer in the British Merchant Navy on sail training ships in her youth.