The Long Path Home

A young woman on the run finds a second chance in World War II Italy in a thrilling novel of love, intrigue, and redemption by the author of A Girl Divided.

1944, Chicago. From desperate small-town teen to star of the burlesque circuit, Violet Ernte has survived tough choices and more than one reinvention. Now, framed for an underworld murder, she has one way out: agree to keep Marcie, a reckless USO showgirl and mobster’s daughter, on the straight and narrow. Vi’s new act: play innocent ingenue and join the all-American song-and-dance troupe bound for overseas to a war-torn Italy.

When a USO headliner goes missing soon after landing, the disappearance has treacherous implications for the entire troupe. With Marcie’s safety in peril, Vi turns to battle-roughened army sergeant Ansel Danger for help. But getting closer to Ansel means exposing her past and her double life of scandal and deception. And in a heartbeat, she could lose everything.

Defiant and resilient, Vi is used to taking risks. This time it’s for redemption. To love, and to be loved. And for a second chance at a future she thought was lost forever.

Ellen Lindseth is a graduate of University of Colorado, Boulder, and the Carlson School of Management. She has also studied at the Loft Literary Center (Minneapolis, MN) and is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Romance Writers of America (RWA). She is the author of the novel A Girl Divided, a 2019 finalist for the RWA’s prestigious RITA Award, and “As Time Goes By,” a short story chosen for publication in the Midwest Fiction Writers’ anthology Festivals of Love.

When not writing about resourceful women of the 1940s, she feeds her passion for adventure by flying as a private pilot, researching new experiences (such as performing burlesque onstage for a local fundraiser), and traveling the world with her husband (also a pilot) in search of plot ideas. Currently she calls Minnesota home, where she resides with her husband, two rescued cats, an elderly bearded dragon, and a handful of fish. For more information, visit www.ellenlindseth.com.