Excerpt from The Last Collection by Jeanne Mackin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

During the war women were filling shells in ammunitions factories, spending lonely nights on top of skyscrapers listening for the angry growl of Messerschmitts. Perhaps they nursed the wounded at Normandy or the Ardennes. But that was over. Women were staying home, making families. New York was full of babies and strollers, and thanks to the new bras, women's bosoms were as full and pointed as weaponry.

Every once in a while a different kind of woman would pass by the window with an expression in her eyes that made me wince: loss, the kind that paints permanent blue shadows around the eyes. My face had looked like that, during the war, after I'd opened my We regret to inform you ... telegram.

Excerpted from The Last Collection by Jeanne Mackin. Copyright © 2019 by Jeanne Mackin. Excerpted by permission of Berkley Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.