Chapter Fifty-Seven: Blackout and All Clear

These two books tell an amazing, ultimately heart-warming story about three historians from 2060 Oxford who travel back in time to WWII to study it and end up getting stuck there.  (It's nowhere near as corny as it sounds.  I promise.)  As they await rescue from the future--rescue that seems increasingly unlikely to come--they band together to try to survive the war, making enormous sacrifices to help each other and to help the people they meet.  The wartime setting adds extra tension and excitement to the novel, and I couldn't help but love the characters--time travelers and contemporaries alike.  The protagonists try so hard to do what's right, even when they're not sure if their actions are having good or bad effects.  There's also a good element of mystery to this story, and it's not until the second book that the pieces of the puzzle all start to come together, adding to the suspense this novel maintains right until its end.  But perhaps the best part of these novels is how Willis manages to mix in a good dose of humor amid the fears and horrors of the war.  These are great novels and I highly recommend them.