The Bells of Times Square

My first thought after reading the last words of this story, with tears hurrying down my face, is to ask myself, “How did this young woman do this? How did a 40 something shiksa find the essence?”Okay let me begin this way: I am a 72 year old Jewish woman born December 31, 1941 So lets go back to a time in the 1940’s born in a Jewish household. Our parents, but more likely our grandparents, were from stronger stock; coming across the ocean in ships to America looking for a better life. America, the country where it was told gold was in the streets.The beginning of this story is Nate, with his grandson and his grandson's friend, pushing a frail grandpa in a wheel chair to Times Square on New Years Eve. The trip is a wonderful experience for the reader as Nate revels in his past memories and in the future, as he watches the boy before him, who will soon blossom into manhood. Amy Lane takes us on a journey with such wonderful care, to show what it was like to be a Jew in 1941 and why we are what we are because of it.Nate lived in Manhattan, his father having a small company. Parents were parents then, not your BFF, and they also had very high expectations. The oldest son was the favored and Nate was not the eldest. Our authoress doesn’t dwell that much on their relationship, but whisps of it are throughout the story and are quite reasonable in fact. Nate and his father were sort of strangers and I think, given the times, it was a logical relationship between parent and child. This was a time when children should be seen and not heard, a familiar quotation of the times. I know this is a review of a masterpiece of a book, so I am sorry that I do digress.Nate is a loner, a thinker, and I loved his quiet sense of himself. He was what he was, just Nate. He went into the war in the US Air Force because of his talent for picture taking. In training, he had only two friends. His job took him over enemy lines with his camera equipment taking pictures of the ground below, bringing film back for our side to see…He was a human satellite.The flight that changed his life was an ordinary surveillance until Nate thought he saw something. He asked the pilot to veer off a bit for pictures and all hell broke loose. Planes came from all directions, the enemy from all sides and their plane went down as the anti Semitic pilot screamed obscenities at Nate for having to die with a Jew. Since God has the last laugh, the pilot was killed; Nate severely wounded….then came Walter.Walter and Nate’s lives together began in an empty house left vacant by its owners running from the Nazi’s. It gave Nate the life he had never imagined in America. Here, he found the touch of warm skin and the taste of it and finally more, love.Returning home after the war, broken and injured, Nate only had one outlet, his trip to Yonkers. Carmen watched Nate trek to Yonkers and talk over a simple grave. She finally got up the nerve and told him “I love you, Nathan. I look at our elders, the immigrants who survived the war, and I see plenty of people huddling together for comfort, but none of them for love. But I love you Nathan, and I think you could love me. I was told you were grieving for someone during the war. So I will make you a deal and she promised him New Year’s Eve and four trips a year to Albany. His reply and only stipulation was, his need to also be buried in Albany. That being said, now she knew. If they married, it was for life—but not for death. His family, his faith, they could have him now, because he couldn’t make it alone. But he’d promised his only love they could be together. Alz (forever)This book is a wonder, a testament to Amy Lane and her ability to bring a story from the heart and make it a masterpiece. Amy this is truly a masterpiece.Review by Gloria LakritzSr Reviewer and Review Chair for the Paranormal Romance Guild

Oh Jesus. Where to start?I can't really review this one. It hit a little too close to home with the holidays and what's going on in my life.But...Nate Meyer is drafted into the Air Force in WWII as a photographer, accompanying British fighter pilots in identifying potential bombing targets. Nate's Jewish, and in the closet. During a mission, the worst happens and as a result, he meets Walter, the sole survivor of a battalion sent to fight. He's been hiding to avoid capture, and rescues Nate.Jump to present day, where Nate lives with his daughter and grandson, a stroke survivor who lives to go to Times Square to hear the bells of a nearby church, which supposedly rang them during the war years to call the soldiers home. Blaine, Nate's grandson, takes his balls in one hand and his heart in the other and introduces his Zayde to his lover.To find out what happens between the time Nate meets Walter until he sits in his wheelchair, silently contemplating Blaine and his boyfriend, read this book. It's...heartbreaking, breathtaking, and just f'ing brilliant.I left a bit of my heart and soul on the pages as I read it, and full out did the ugly cry at the end.Amy Lane can lull you into a lovely spell then stomp on your heart with steel toed boots and make you beg for more better than any author out there. Bless her black little heart, I wouldn't have it any other way.I loved this book. It's like...that sweet sadness you hear in the best love songs that make you remember that romance that almost broke you.Read it. See if you don't agree.Tom

I'm a sucker for these kinds of books...m/m military love stories. That being said, this is one of the finest books of that genre I've ever read. As a matter of fact, I had a compulsion to read it again as soon as I'd finished it!The Bells of Times Square tells the story of Nate Meyer, a photographer in the USAAF, who's plane is shot down over France. He is the only one who survives the crash and is saved by an escaped POW. They find themselves in a small, abandoned house, hiding out from the Germans until a French resistance fighter enters their lives.Walter and Nate form a strong relationship, one of love and understandingfriendship. It follows Nate's life after the war and his continuing feelings for the man who saved his life. Theirs was a love that couldn't be spoken and when, years later, Nate finds out his own grandson is gay and involved with another man, he finds his peace,knowing that he has,in some way, paved the way for his grandson's happiness. Alz.I can't recommend this book enough. It is far and away one of the best in the genre.

I love Amy Lane. I would read literally anything she wrote...it could be an instruction manual and I'd read it. When this came out I knew it would be a bittersweet book, and because of that I put it off for a bit before I picked it up. But as soon as I started, within the first few pages, I knew I was reading something that was going to be epic. I wasn't wrong. I have never read another author who is so talented at being able to make me FEEL so much. This story, and these characters were so alive in my head, I could picture it so clearly, I felt like I was with them the whole way. The details that she is able to bring into her work, the spirit...everything, its just amazing to me. The camaraderie, the friendship, the longing, the passion, the love, the heartbreak, the anger, the hopelessness, the acceptance, the perseverance, the hope, and finally the coming home....I felt it every step of the way. Just go read it, you won't regret it. And have a box of tissues handy.

Love this author! Waited for this book and didn't want it to end. Hurts your heart in a good way. Another one to keep.

Great heartfelt love story