Publication date: January 2024
LGBTQ+ author: Queer, trans
Setting: Wold War II Canada & UK
Content warnings: War, human and animal death, homophobia, discrimination
The only thing I am disappointed about is that this is the author’s first novel. I want more!
Summary
The McNairs are an Irish immigrant family who have settled on a farm in Southern Ontario. While still very young, Kit falls through the ice while exploring the woods with her two brothers. She drowns but is nursed back to health by her mother.
After the accident, Kit bristles against the expectations of her as a farm girl. She often steals her brother’s clothes to wear while doing boy’s chores — and then the cooking and cleaning when her mother makes her.
In 1939, Rebekah Kromer moves to town with her parents from Quebec. Her father is facing increasing difficulty finding work as a German immigrant in the lead up to World War II.
Soon both Kit and her brother Landon are jostling for Rebekah’s attention and affection. This love triangle rips their families apart and sends them all on their own paths to war.
While using borrowed identification papers, Kit joins the Air Force as a young man. Landon joins the Navy. Rebekah joins naval intelligence efforts at home in Canada.
Kit goes by different names/pronouns throughout the book, but I will use the name Kit and they/them pronouns for the rest of the review.
Trans magic
One could argue that all the events in this story could happen in real life, but there is a hint of magic to many of the scenes involving Kit. It starts with their drowning and unlikely recovery as a young child. This motif returns several times throughout the novel. There is also frequent repetition of a story for children about selkies, or Ireland’s version of mermaids.
It is implied that Kit’s gender non-conforming and rebellious nature is due to them being a magical creature, perhaps a selkie or changeling. In Irish folklore, changelings are faeries who are left in the place of stolen human children.
Of course we modern readers know that trans and non-binary genders naturally exists from birth, as do queer people. When queer and trans people are forced into straight and cisgender roles against our nature, it can make us rebel as we suffer under the weight of these expectations.
I love that this book allows us to imagine Kit as something supernatural, rather than defective or deviant. By extension, it allows us queer and trans readers to imagine ourselves in this way. It is difficult for a magic creature to live among us mere mortals!
Dealing with difference
This books portrays homophobia, anti-German discrimination and sexism in a way that is likely true to its time. Rebekah being a queer, German woman faces some of the worst of it. Kit living as a man for a large part of the book gets off a bit easier in some but not all ways.
As I write in my Queer Joy Test for Fiction, I find this realistic portrayal of homophobia and transphobia acceptable when our main characters find love and safety to balance it out. I want to feel uplifted when I put down a book with queer characters, not depressed scared. I found this book very satisfying in this regard.
One thing I particularly appreciated was how the story of Kit’s time in the Air Force was told. They have joined using borrowed papers and name, and everyone considers them to be a cis man. The story unfolds about their time as a soldier, not their body. I appreciate not giving into that voyeurism around trans bodies that some cis people crave. People assigned female at birth have been fighting as men in wars for as long as we have recorded history. This is just accepted as fact and we move on.
Recommendation
This is not a book I would have usually picked up, but I am so glad I did. I loved the mix of family drama and action scenes from World War II. I love how the queer and trans characters are portrayed in the novel, and feel comforted by the lives they make for themselves despite hardship. These characters and story will stick with me for a long time.
Disclaimer
NetGalley provided me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
Queer Book Reviews 
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