Featured Review

Book 3 of the Courageous Footsteps series continues the story of Yasu, who is now married and leading a new life in the aftermath of World War II, which landed her family in a Japanese internment camp and resulted in the death of her beloved brother. How does one recover to lead a new life in the aftermath of such gut-wrenching disaster? That’s one of the keys to understanding the determined, feisty Yasu’s process as she faces a vastly changed world and life, including a new teaching job and expanding opportunities, even as her husband Masato struggles to pursue a degree and faces losing his job to an experienced, returning war vet.

Readers who have followed Yasu’s evolution in previous books will especially appreciate seeing these threads of change, which force characters to consider new actions, reactions, and consequences of their behaviors even as society changes and evolves around them. While the story stands nicely alone as an individual piece, when read in the wider context of Yasu’s life, it serves as yet another jigsaw puzzle piece creating the bigger picture of the World War II experience. Especially when taken as an integral part of this blossoming series, it is recommended for mature teens to adult readers seeking far more psychological depth and social inspection than the usual focus on the Japanese experience in America during the War.

– reviewed on the Independent Publisher’s Shelf at the Midwest Book Review

Other Reviews

Diane weaves in the intensity of racial actions and words with a story that ‘Americanizes’ a small Japanese American family just trying to make it in post-World War II America. They face the additional challenge of experiencing the advantages and disadvantages of being a minority in our society. Dettmann captures the basic goodness in human nature, showing how many treated this family as if they weren’t different while including reminders that negative racial thoughts are as much a part of human nature as that goodness. As a third generation Japanese American born and raised in the Midwest, I believe that Diane writes with an awareness of what it’s like being racially different that is quite accurate.

– Amazon reviewer John Suzukida