From a talented new voice in women’s fiction comes an emotionally powerful novel about a young war widow who tries to find out what really happened to her husband in Iraq. 
 

The moment Abby sees two soldiers approach her front door, she knows her husband is dead. John Stanton, who gave up his career as an NFL running back to serve in the army after 9/11, has been killed in Iraq.  
 

Suddenly Abby’s kitchen is overflowing with casseroles brought by the army wives’ club to which she has never really belonged. And her in-laws arrange a lavish funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, in spite of Abby’s misgivings. John had grown to hate the war even though he loved his country, and Abby can’t reconcile the complex man she knew with the version being portrayed by self-serving politicians, military leaders and the media.  
 

Shell-shocked, Abby strives to cope with her own heartache while comforting John’s loved ones, including his mother Sharice, his staunchly anti-war sister Madison, his bitter younger brother Noah, and his father, a Vietnam veteran and career soldier now retired from the U.S. Army.  
 

While others focus on preserving John’s fame, Abby becomes more and more convinced that John wasn’t killed by the enemy, but by someone he knew and trusted. ONE SEPTEMBER MORNING is a gripping and thoughtful story of loyalty and betrayal, a tale of one shattered family’s journey toward healing, and an examination of the courage it takes to confront the truth not just about our enemies but also about those we love.  
 

FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 
 
Noonan’s timely debut tells the Pat Tillmanesque tale of a football star turned soldier gunned down in Iraq by friendly fire. Abby, John Stanton’s widowed wife, wants answers from the tight-lipped military who insist John was killed by an insurgent, and John’s parents want him lauded in a hero’s burial in Arlington Cemetery…Written with great insight into military families and the constant struggle between supporting the troops but not the war, Noonan delivers a fast-paced, character-driven tale with a touch of mystery.
 
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FROM RT BOOK REVIEWS 
 

Four stars ****
 

One September Morning is a story of loyalty and betrayal as a shattered family tries to heal after the loss of one of their own in Iraq. Gripping and emotional, the story could not be more timely. 

FROM BOOKLIST

Being the wife of a soldier is not how Abby expected her life to turn out. Her husband, John, was a star football player from Rutgers playing with the Seattle Seahawks when he decided to join the army a la Pat Tillman. September 11 deeply impacted John, and now Abby is alone in Fort Lewis, Washington, studying for a master’s degree in psychology. She is stunned when she learns of John’s death. As her mother-in-law plans a lavish hero’s funeral, Abby, haunted by visions of John, struggles to deal with the tragedy only to be stymied by the lack of cooperation from the army. Flint, a college friend who is now a reporter embedded with the troops, tells Abby that John’s demise may have been set up by a member of his platoon who has set his sights on Abby and John’s family. Noonan creates a unique thriller that is anti-Iraq War and pro-soldier, a novel that focuses on the toll war takes on returning soldiers and civilians whose loved ones won’t be coming home.
 
YA/M: Teens will be drawn to John’s younger sister, an ardently antiwar member of a military family, as she tries to cope with her beloved brother’s death.

-- Patty Engelmann    
 

From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson 

Readers of Jodi Picoult will love One September Morning.