Join Barbara Kent Lawrence for a live reading and discussion on her new book exploring the true story of a family brought together and separated by the vagaries of war.

In January of 1939 when Barbara Greene, a beautiful young British actress, met Joe Kennedy, Jr., son of the American Ambassador, she could not have expected that their relationship would lead to her emigrating to the United States and learning to pilot a plane. Neither could her brother, Kent, have foreseen his bitter retreat from Dunkirk when he left England in January 1940 to fight in France, or his subsequent service on the frontlines in Cornwall, North Africa, Sicily, and Burma. In this intensively researched war story of the author’s family, we also hear the stories of other ordinary people who survived extraordinary circumstances.

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Barbara Kent Lawrence, Ed.D, is the author of many articles and nine books, including an award-winning dissertation about the influence of culture on aspirations in Maine. A former professor, she has taught courses in anthropology and sociology, research, and writing non-fiction and memoir. In addition to teaching, Lawrence has worked for the Department of Social Services and the Housing Development Administration in New York, directed a small museum in Maine, and started four non-profit organizations. She lives in Maine and is working on the third novel in her Islands series.