Dear Miss Kopp

3.5 stars. As always, it's well worth the time to catch up with the Kopp sisters, three women whose lives Amy Stewart has portrayed with varying degrees of historical accuracy during the early part of the 20th century (mostly because some aspects of their lives were chronicled in newspapers of the time, while others were unknown). As the Americans finally enter WWI, former “lady sheriff” Constance is ferreting out German spies lurking in America for the nascent Bureau of Investigation, young and pretty Fleurette is entertaining the troops in training as a backup singer to Vaudeville era-star May Ward, and the force of nature Norma is finally getting to put her messenger pigeons to the test close to the battlefields of France. I love epistolary novels, but reading letters from the sisters (and a BFF that Norma picks up in France) while they are in far flung corners of the world made the book feel a bit disjointed. Plus I missed seeing them interact with each other, although watching Norma bulldoze her way through an entire American Army of clueless men will never not be entertaining. There has been a lot of character growth since [b:Girl Waits with Gun 23719378 Girl Waits with Gun (Kopp Sisters, #1) Amy Stewart https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500687846l/23719378.SY75.jpg 43328906]; Constance is more confident, Fleurette is less self-centered, and Norma - well, Norma is still uniquely herself but possibly a little more willing to let other people into her life (the BFF she adopts in France is a perfect example). Stewart also unearths disturbing but sadly accurate historical attitudes and practices of the time. A “Protective Committee” arrested and imprisoned young women who were seen as too friendly with the American soldiers out of concern that they might “weaken their morals and inflict upon them crippling social diseases that make it impossible for them to defeat the Kaiser.” And the American Protective League, “overzealous office men frustrated that they're too old for the draft,” hunted down anyone suspected of failing to register for service. Stewart seems to delight in providing historical evidence that both proves that we've come a long way in the past century and reminds us that fanaticism and intolerance are ageless. The book ends with the Armistice, but it's obvious that change lies ahead for our Kopp sisters. As Constance writes, With the war ended, there's a spark here I can hardly describe. It's a sense that nothing can be the same again, and that what's coming next is well, a new era. Something bright and almost unimaginably different from the old days, before the war. I can't wait to see where Stewart takes the Kopp sisters next, but I hope that she brings them back together at least for some of their adventures. They are much more entertaining when they can interact with each other and demonstrate that despite their differences, they stand united.