BOOK REVIEW: The Land Beneath Us

At least once a month, I will try to post a book review.  Sometimes it will be a book I read years ago, other times I will have just turned the last page and feel like writing a review. 

My reviews will always be about a book I rated with either 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads and/or Amazon.  There are soooo many books available for readers to choose from—and to choose to buy—that I want to save you readers both selection time and hard-earned money.  I want to give you “the best bang for your buck.”  So, even though there are some 3-star books that are still “good,” I’ll only post reviews about the “better” and “best” books I’ve read.

Goodreads’ rating system:                  Amazon’s rating system:

3 stars = I liked it                                3 stars = It’s okay

4 stars = I really liked it                      4 stars = I like it

5 stars = It was amazing                      5 stars = I love it

I selected The Land Beneath Us by Sarah Sundin for this month’s book review because I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah and sharing a meal with her this past September at the 2019 American Christian Fiction Writers Conference, and after that I was interested in reading her work. Come to find out she is published under Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group – and guess who is on this author’s wish list of houses I’d like to be published by for my future novels? And then … I recently joined Revell Reads Blogger Book Review Program, where Revell sends you ARCs in exchange for an honest book review – and guess what was one of the books up for grabs this month?  And then!  Just this month via a Facebook Group, Revell started Beyond the Book, an online book club for fiction readers – and guess which novel was chosen to discuss this month? So! I think I was getting plenty of “signs” that February would be a great month to write a review for this book!

Back Cover Book Blurb

In 1943, Private Clay Paxton trains hard with the US Army Rangers at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, determined to do his best in the upcoming Allied invasion of France. With his future stolen by his brothers’ betrayal, Clay has only one thing to live for–fulfilling the recurring dream of his death.

Leah Jones works as a librarian at Camp Forrest, longing to rise above her orphanage upbringing and belong to the community, even as she uses her spare time to search for her real family–the baby sisters she was separated from so long ago.

After Clay saves Leah’s life from a brutal attack, he saves her virtue with a marriage of convenience. When he ships out to train in England for D-day, their letters bind them together over the distance. But can a love strong enough to overcome death grow between them before Clay’s recurring dream comes true?

My February 2020 Review

4 STARS ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

To be accepted. To belong. To have a warm-hearted family. To be loved.

These are universal desires for most people, and for many, they’re not simply desires, but needs. This is the case for US Army Ranger Clay Paxton and librarian Leah Jones in the World War II historical romance novel The Land Beneath Us, by author Sarah Sundin.

Clay, a young man from Kerrville, Texas, has a white father and a Mexican mother, and because of this, he struggles to feel accepted by both the outside world and his two older, half-brothers, Adler and Wyatt. Some people in the Rangers call him a “half-breed” and a nurse at a hospital thinks Leah was attacked by Clay, with the nurse saying, “You know his kind.” Clay feels inferior to his siblings, and thinks maybe the reason both his brothers betrayed him was because of his mama’s background. Clay thinks his brothers might have believed that Clay “didn’t deserve to go to college and become a physician and marry the pretty blonde.”

Trying to forgive his brothers is a back and forth struggle for Clay throughout the whole book, as he tells Leah he’s forgiven them, but he really has not. Forgiveness is easier said than done, and like a lot of people who have been wronged, Clay carries a heavy weight of anger and sadness because he has not truly forgiven his brothers.

Author Sundin proves talented in weaving Biblical comparisons and truths in The Land Beneath Us, which not only gives this novel more depth, but also will make readers want to pull out their Bibles and study certain areas of Scripture more closely, in order to really understand what God wants us to learn from certain passages. Two examples Sundin uses in this area are: Clay feeling a lot like Joseph, whose brothers did the unthinkable to him; and then Clay’s realization about his part in the story of the Prodigal Son.

Heroine Leah is like Clay in that she longs for acceptance and for a loving family, but her yearning stems from growing up as a different kind of an outcast—an orphan. Her parents died when Leah was four, and she and her baby sisters were also separated from each other at that time.

Apparently, in the 1940s, the main emotion a lot of people felt about children who had lost their parents wasn’t pity, but disgust. Sundin skillfully shows this outlook through both heart-breaking internal narrative by Leah and Clay, and through dialogue, particularly of others. One well-known, high-society lady whose name could be seen on multiple business in town was talking to Leah—before the woman knew Leah was an orphan—and she made her opinion about orphans clear. She told Leah orphans “come from the basest of backgrounds” and they are “dirty, illiterate, hooligans” who are a “filthy, unruly lot.”

While Leah and Clay face these battles of emotions in their minds and hearts, Clay trains for a physical battle, as D-day approaches. The author made it very interesting to learn about all the training the Rangers went through, and you can tell Sundin did her research.

This novel begins in June 1943, a year before D-day, and Leah and Clay meet in the library on Leah’s very first day to work as a librarian at Camp Forrest in Tennessee, where Clay is stationed. A month later, Leah is assaulted after hours in the library, and Clay comes upon the scene just after the assailant plunges a knife into Leah’s chest. The attacker gets away, but Clay saves Leah’s life by creating a bandage with his shirt, and then by getting her to the Army hospital a mile away—by carrying her in his arms as he runs the whole distance there!

Okay, a lot of women would probably say if they were Leah, they would have fell in love with Clay right at that moment! Leah didn’t fall in love then, but she did feel such an abundance of gratitude toward Clay. The two of them had also already become fast friends during their prior visits together at the library, and their friendship continues to deepen with each visit Clay makes to Leah during her several weeks’ recovery time at the hospital.

Shortly before Leah is to be discharged, it’s discovered the attacker impregnated her. Clay then saves Leah once again—saving her virtue, that is—by offering to marry her, so she can keep the baby instead of giving it up for adoption. They do get married, and they write letters to each other during the several months before D-day, and in the midst of this correspondence, they both start to feel as if they might be falling in love with each other.

Now, I admit I’ve never believed much in people who claimed to have fell in love with each other because of letters sent during war, or any of these “fast marriages” / marriages of convenience really working out, and turning into a true love situation. However, I absolutely believed it in the case of Clay and Leah because author Sundin does such a fantastic job creating scenes that depict the emotional intimacy that can indeed be gained through just words on a page sent in letters.

There are several more areas of this book I’d love to share with you, but I don’t want to give away any spoilers! Suffice it to say I think if you love romance, especially historical romance, and particularly historical romance set during times of war, you will most certainly enjoy this novel. The Land Beneath Us is the third book in the Sunrise at Normandy series, and the first book I’ve read by Sundin—but it definitely won’t be the last! I look forward to reading the other two novels in this series, which each one tells the story of Clay’s two brothers, and I also plan to check out the books in Sundin’s three other series, which are all also set during World War II.