pril 10, 1919.
The war in Europe, the Great War, the War to End
All Wars, is over—America and her allies have
defeated the German forces. The USS Mongolia arrives in
Boston carrying over 5,000 soldiers and sailors
returning from France. Thousands are gathered on
Commonwealth Pier to welcome the returning
doughboys, dancing, waving flags, singing, and
celebrating the safe return of their loved ones.
But
war changes things. It changes nations, and it
changes people, both those who fought and those
who waited anxiously back home. One soldier among
the thousands arriving in Boston on this day is
not joining in the celebrations. He is a young man
from Holyoke, Massachusetts. He enlisted out of a
sense of duty to his nation, little knowing the
pain, the hurt he would suffer. His wounds are not
those of gunshots or mustard gas or influenza,
they are wounds of the heart and the soul, and
they are deep.
In
Darkest Before Dawn, Book 4 of
the Trolley Days Series, Massachusetts author
Robert
T. McMaster traces the lives of four young people
growing up in a time of turmoil and wrenching
change for their country, their hometown, and
themselves.
Darkest Before Dawn
by Robert T. McMaster
Unquomonk Press, 2022
332
pages, 50 illustrations
ISBN 9798428349832
THE TROLLEY
DAYS BOOK SERIES

The nineteen-teens was a
tumultuous era in American history. The pace of
social change was dizzying: the rising tide of
worker unrest, the battle for women's suffrage,
the scourge of discrimination against
minorities. New technologies—electricity,
the telephone, the automobile–were transforming
life. Meanwhile the war raging in Europe was
drawing America inexorably into its vortex.
Author Robert T. McMaster transports his
readers back in time to early 20th century
America in the Trolley Days Series of historical
novels. Set in a bustling New England industrial
city, these books follow the lives of teenagers
Jack Bernard and Tom Wellington through good
times and bad, hope and despair, love and loss.
Readers young and old will be captivated by the
world of their grandparents and
great-grandparents, an era seemingly remote that
nonetheless speaks to us across the generations.
Trolley Days, The Dyeing Room, Noah’s
Raven, and Darkest Before Dawn are
currently available in paperback and in several
eBook formats.
READ
ABOUT THE TROLLEY DAYS SERIES
"Holyoke, Westfield Sites
Featured in
Series of Historical Mystery Novels"
by Mike Lydick
The Reminder
(Springfield, Mass.)
May 5, 2022